[Redeemed Papist]

Re: How can we see stars if they are "millions of light years" away?

Everyone knows light doesn't travel. I just switch on my light and on it comes.

[Ezekiel Bathfire]

Re: How can we see stars if they are "millions of light years" away?

"And God said, Let there be light." Now God said that before He had created the sun, so it stands to reason that light "Just appears. It is there." If it took time traveling, the verse would be, "And God said, Let there be light. And The Lord waited for a while and it began to get less dim."

I hardly think that is God's style.

The universe is mathematically it is perfect.

So you can prove with math that there is a God?

You interest me, please continue.

[Lord of Kelvin]

Re: How can we see stars if they are "millions of light years" away?

Yes, these stars are indeed millions of miles away. We know this, because light travels at a finite speed, defined as c, which is roughly 300'000'000 m/s. It takes time for one photon of light to travel from one point to another, we don't notice this in everyday life because it's so fast, but it has been demonstrated in numerous experiments, such as the Michelson-Morley interferometer experiment, conducted in 1887. As a matter of fact, this experiment set out to prove much the opposite, but showed light to have a constant speed in a vacuum.

So how do we actually show that these stars are far away? Well, the light-year is just a measure of distance, the distance light travels in one year. This itself cannot be used as proof of stars being far away, it's just a handy unit of measurement. However, we can use other methods. One of these methods is known as Pogson's equation.

This equation allows us to use a star's magnitude to calculate its distance away from us. Essentially, using, first the chemical composition of the star to determine its stellar classification and hence provide a an estimate for the absolute magnitude, followed by the apparent magnitude, how big it appears from here. We can work out the distance to the star.

From these observations and calculations, we have been able to show that stars are indeed several millions of light-years away. But another member raises the issue of how do we see them if they are so far away? Well the answer to that is quite simple. Stars are huge! Let's take the Sun for example, a relatively small star by our galaxy's standards, is 695,508,000 metres in radius. That is positively massive. With that much light travelling at us, some of it does reach us. This is why the stars appear so small, because of how vastly far away they really are.

Everytime you look at a star, you are actually looking at it in its state millions of years ago.

[RepentingJew]

Re: How can we see stars if they are "millions of light years" away?

Everytime you look at a star, you are actually looking at it in its state millions of years ago.

Yet you are saying that star called "Alfa Centauri" is 4 light years from us?

Make up your mind!

[Mary Etheldreda]

Re: How can we see stars if they are "millions of light years" away?

Everytime you look at a star, you are actually looking at it in its state millions of years ago.

Time travel?

[Lord of Kelvin]

Re: How can we see stars if they are "millions of light years" away?

Yet you are saying that star called "Alfa Centauri" is 4 light years from us?

Make up your mind!

Okay, so Alpha Centauri is a star reasonably close to us, this means that light from Alpha Centauri only takes four years to travel to us. This means the image you see of Alpha Centauri in your telescope is an image of what the star looked like four years ago.

When I said millions of years ago, I was generalising, taking the idea that most stars are millions of lightyears away from us.

Time travel?

Mary, it's not as silly as it sounds. Effectively, because light only travels at a finite speed, it takes light from the star a certain amount of time to get here. In the case of α Centauri, 4 lightyears away, it takes the light four years to reach us. So when you look at α Centauri, that image is already four years old. Essentially you are looking back in time.

[Ezekiel Bathfire]

Re: How can we see stars if they are "millions of light years" away?

Okay, so Alpha Centauri is a star reasonably close to us, this means that light from Alpha Centauri only takes four years to travel to us. This means the image you see of Alpha Centauri in your telescope is an image of what the star looked like four years ago.

I don't see the point of this, Alpha Centuri is the same age as the earth - God created everything 6,000 years ago.

It takes the light four years to reach us. So when you look at α Centauri, that image is already four years old. Essentially you are looking back in time.

Can you explain why it is that when God said, "Let there be light!", there was light?

Light didn't hang around for a few years before it made an appearance, did it?

[Asshat Turdhead]

Re: How can we see stars if they are "millions of light years" away?

According to our models of stellar evolution, Alpha Centauri A, B, and C (this is a triple star system) are a older than our estimated age of the earth, they are 6 billion years old. Alpha Centauri B (type G star slightly smaller than the Sun and is smaller than Alpha Centauri A) actually has a planet. It orbits with a period of 3 days making its surface molten hot and its slightly larger than the Earth.

I don't know what to tell you but the speed of light has been measured using many methods of math (wavelength equations, e=mc^2, measurements from CERN) and Alpha Centauri's distance has been measured (I actually measured it once) and with this, we know that the light took 4 years to get here.

[Lord of Kelvin]

Re: How can we see stars if they are "millions of light years" away?

I don't see the point of this, Alpha Centuri is the same age as the earth - God created everything 6,000 years ago.

Can you explain why it is that when God said, "Let there be light!", there was light?

Light didn't hang around for a few years before it made an appearance, did it?

Well because we know that God did not create the universe 6'000 years ago, we know this for a number of reasons, first of all the universe itself has been accurately measured to be 13.81 billion years old. Our sun, Sol, has been measured to be about 4.57 billion years old, roughly the same age as the Earth. Apart from carbon dating and radio dating of various forms, we also have evidence of civilisations, such as the Babylonians and the Egyptians, living on Earth as far back as 10'000 years ago. To simply assume a young Earth when so much contradicts that is ignorant.

Secondly, what proof, other than 'The Book' do you have that God actually said "Let there be light"?

[IdiocyofMYUniverse]

Re: How can we see stars if they are "millions of light years" away?

I don't see the point of this, Alpha Centuri is the same age as the earth - God created everything 6,000 years ago.

Christianity = brainwashed idiots. It's a good 4.54 billion years old. years old, and astronomers calculate that the universe may be as much as 14 billion years old. Christians also killed people who didn't believe that the Earth was the center of the universe too. As claimed by their leaders to be indicated by their Bible. If your religion contradicts reality, one would have to assume that your religion is wrong.

Can you explain why it is that when God said, "Let there be light!", there was light?

The writers of the Genesis creation story didn't of course have the knowledge we have today, and wouldn't have known that the sun is a star, or that moonlight is reflected light from the sun. In Genesis it says God created day and night before the Sun - we all know that's impossible.

Light didn't hang around for a few years before it made an appearance, did it?

Two words...

BIG BANG!

Light is produced when an electron moves from a higher energy level to a lower energy level, producing a photon with energy equivalent to that energy transition. Light is made up of packets of energy called photons, and that's where you get them from.

[Basilissa]

Re: How can we see stars if they are "millions of light years" away?

Christianity = brainwashed idiots. It's a good 4.54 billion years old. years old, and astronomers calculate that the universe may be as much as 14 billion years old. Christians also killed people who didn't believe that the Earth was the center of the universe too. As claimed by their leaders to be indicated by their Bible. If your religion contradicts reality, one would have to assume that your religion is wrong.

Wrong. Bible=reality. Why in the world would we take the word of scientists, who are people with a tendency to err, over the word of God, who is Perfect?

The writers of the Genesis creation story didn't of course have the knowledge we have today,

They had all the knowledge that God wanted them - and us - to have. Period.

and wouldn't have known that the sun is a star, or that moonlight is reflected light from the sun. In Genesis it says God created day and night before the Sun - we all know that's impossible.

NOTHING is impossible for God!

[IdiocyofMYUniverse]

Re: How can we see stars if they are "millions of light years" away?

over the word of God, who is Perfect?

Why does god allow terrible things to happen?

A ) He can't control them
B ) He causes them
C ) He doesn't care
D ) God doesn't exist

make your choice..

Wrong. Bible=reality. Why in the world would we take the word of scientists, who are people with a tendency to err, over the word of God, who is Perfect?

They had all the knowledge that God wanted them - and us - to have. Period.

NOTHING is impossible for God!

Here's something we've learned about the universe and it doesn't match with your liberal view of the bible. There's a conflict there and we need to resolve that and some people resolved in favor of the bible saying the bible's absolutely right and ignore whatever actual evidence is presented. I find that to be patently absurd because it turns christianity into a self contradictory proposition, which is where there is a god who has an important message for mankind and somehow he only reveals it to certain individuals who then write this down and thousands of years after this initial revelation we have to rely on copies of copies of translations of copies by anonymous authors with no originals to a miracle. There's no amount of reports, anecdotal testimonial reports, that could be sufficient to justify believing that there's a bit actually happened as reported and anything that would qualify as a god would clearly understand that this and if it wanted to convey this information to people in a way that was believable would not be relying on text to do so and this me is the nail on the coffin for Christianity. The god that Christians believe it amazingly stupid if it wants to actually achieve its goal of spreading misinformation humanity by relying on text, by relying on languages that die off, by relying on anecdotal testimony; that's not a pathway to trim and anything that would qualify for god should know this, which means either that god doesn't exist or doesn't care enough about those people who understand the nature of evidence to actually present it.

[Billy Bob Jenkins]

Re: How can we see stars if they are "millions of light years" away?

Why does god allow terrible things to happen?

A ) He can't control them
B ) He causes them
C ) He doesn't care
D ) God doesn't exist

make your choice..

God tells us that B is true in Isaiah 45:7. If you had bothered to read the Bible you would know that.

Isaiah 45:7

King James Version (KJV)

7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.

If you have a problem with that, then I hope you like it hot year round.

[Didymus Much]

Re: How can we see stars if they are "millions of light years" away?

Why does god allow terrible things to happen?

A ) He can't control them
B ) He causes them
C ) He doesn't care
D ) God doesn't exist

make your choice..

...

It's a false choice you're offering. Your fallacy is that you've defined things as "terrible" using your own limited human understanding, which the Bible tells us is wrong.

You make it sound like 250,000 dying in a tsunami (Indonesia, 2004) or even 30,000 (Japan, 2012) is "terrible". If you read the Bible, you'll understand that from a True Christian™ point of view, these events are miracles, as they show the power of God to righteously smite those who deny His Majesty (by not tithing robustly and joyously to His Favourite Church™, Landover Baptist ).

How many tsunamis have hit Iowa (home of Landover Baptist) recently? Checkmate, sinner!

[IdiocyofMYUniverse]

Re: How can we see stars if they are "millions of light years" away?

It's a false choice you're offering. Your fallacy is that you've defined things as "terrible" using your own limited human understanding, which the Bible tells us is wrong.

You make it sound like 250,000 dying in a tsunami (Indonesia, 2004) or even 30,000 (Japan, 2012) is "terrible". If you read the Bible, you'll understand that from a True Christian™ point of view, these events are miracles, as they show the power of God to righteously smite those who deny His Majesty (by not tithing robustly and joyously to His Favourite Church™, Landover Baptist ).

How many tsunamis have hit Iowa (home of Landover Baptist) recently? Checkmate, sinner!

I would reply back, but you have made a good point. I'm confused now.