Dead Star Eats Water-Rich Asteriod - Probe

These articles always seem to imply that they are watching something happening in real time...

If this is 150 light years away, aren't they seeing something that occurred 150 years in the past?

Probably setting myself up to be slammed, but that's always confused me. It seems like the fastest an image can reach a telescope, is the speed of light, which would mean that we have no idea of what's happening in this part of the universe today.

Then, maybe the concept of "today" is meaningless.

Yes, but no.

I think time may not be something that actually flows, but is more aptly described as "everything happening at once".

We just perceive time as a movie film passing over a projector lamp. I provided a long post about that some time ago (no pun intended) HERE.

We have no idea on the multiple of things that even goes on on our own world until it happens. We find out on the news. Which is not real time. May be the actual occurrence is 150 years old. But is still as relevant as it's first time seen and reported to the masses.

Seems to me your not confused. You realize it happen 150 years ago.

Maybe confused was the wrong word.

It's wild that we can look through a telescope and watch an event that happened 150 years ago.

Even if it is the other side of the room, it is in the past relative to the observer. It is just that the time delay in the information arriving is insignificant in comparison with the brain's processing time in interpreting it, which is not the case with things of a trans-galactic nature.

The creators of the concept of sub-space have a lot to answer for...

Yeah. Same with the people that coined the term "real time".

Right.

But, it is real time to us when we see it.

If time is really real.

Dang! Where is the instruction leaflet for that LynDoor™ alarm clock?

That's all........ Relative.........

Title edit.

Looking into deep space is simply watching history occur in real time.

Just goes to show that aliens from another star system would have one less reason to come here.

They wouldn't need our water or mineral resources.

(Unless they are really vain and like expensive imported crap even though they could have gotten it locally.)

Judging from some of our television commercial alone would be enough to cause any intelligent life to steer well away from us.

However, one should not discount morbid curiosity.

Just buy the Lyndoor wormhole Telescope and you can see everything real time as it is happening!

If only!.... That could sure settle a few controversies.

Get a LynDoor™Industries FutureScope.

They're light years ahead of the competition.

Corrective lenses available - in about an hour.

Perhaps it was thirsty.

Somebody needs to tell that Dead Star that eating ice is bad for your teeth.

I ask how an asteroid can be water rich.

If a planet like Mars has no water because the escape velocity of water molecules is enough to overcome gravity and water evaporates into space then how can a small asteroid hold a lot of water.

Is it due to temperature.

They've found the moon also contains water.

I don't know, it should all be freeze dried.

The leading theory is that we understand that the Moon has hydroxyl molecules both on the surface and in the soil.

The solar wind carries protons from hydrogen atoms, which chemically reacts with the hydroxyl to create water molecules.

The process is continuous as long as there is a solar wind and a source of hydroxyl in the soil. That hydroxyl soil can be on the Moon or an asteroid. If the area is shaded from the Sun water can actually pool as a form of chemically bound ice in these locations.

The reason that the water does not sublime into space is the water molecules are chemically bound to other material on the Moon or asteroids.

Thanks for the explanation.

IF the Universe is more like a digital checkerboard at the far sub-atomic level, even if this appears ordered, and perhaps predictable with great enough (what is enough) computing power, by the time we zoom out to macroscopic events in the "real" universe, things appear to be chaotic. Another view is that time is like the projector and film strip. We know the initial state (implied), and we know the final steate (observed), and nothing about what takes place in between. That path between states can be varied is can be considered statistical in nature.

If the film we see is actually running backwards, then what we do now, has a tremendous impact on events in the past. Mind boggling stuff, but maybe just maybe by observing such an event in a telescope now, we "caused" it to happen 150 years in the past. This is at once humorous and a paradox is it not? It is totally controversial to the normal way we view time.

You wrote, "but maybe just maybe by observing such an event in a telescope now, we "caused" it to happen 150 years in the past."

I think not because what we are observing is simply photons that finally got here. It's a little like getting a post card from your aunt. Reading it now has nothing to do with causing their visit to Paris where it was originally sent.

I know that is what we were all taught to believe, and seemingly is the only plausible explanation. That is true for a Universe where causality is strictly unilinear and unidirectional. Are you quite sure that is the Universe where we live, though.

Actually, I think we live in a universe where all things are happening at once. Sort of like a movie film in a can. Everything is there from start to end and more (I'll expand on that shortly). Our consciousness simply acts as a "projector" displaying a film in a specific order.

However, all possibilities exist, so all possible outcomes are valid. Our consciousness is the navigator that creates the thread by which we experience and the direction we transverse the pool of "time".

I posted the basic hypothesis Here where I have attempted to demonstrate this using an example of what I called "Now Time".

Now Time is everything that is happening everywhere in the universe at one specific instant in time. As an example, you are popping the cork on a bottle of wine and at that same Now Time instant a star might be going nova, however, you will not be aware of that latter event for many years due to the time it takes for the star's photons to reach Earth.

What is important to understand about Now Time is that it represents a theoretical instant in time for all points in the universe, not the moment where a single observer becomes aware of all those events. It's easy to confuse the two.

If you follow my post it should become clear that past - present - future must all be equally valid, thus challenging the causal link that we are "trained" to believe as conscious beings.

It could be that consciousness itself is responsible for creating the temporal thread we experience in this bulk we call time.

So, what you were originally posing may indeed be correct (in its essence), I just think that your analogy with the telescope you used is not necessarily a good example in this instance.

Yeah, not an illustrative example. I will leave this to fresher minds. I am getting old.