Is it possible to look back in time? Yes

I got to thinking the other day that when you look up at the stars at night you are looking back in time, as the light takes so long to get to you etc, etc.
Think about this one, lets say you have a super powerful telescope and lets assume there is another planet like ours with people on it but it is 200,000 light years away for example if you could see the people on this other planet through this super telescope would they be as they were 200,000 years ago or what.

mod edit: title grammar

[edit on 2-2-2006 by sanctum]

In a word Yes you would be looking 200,000 years into there past.
Better yet immange have a ship that could go anyware in the universe instantly.and a huge scope on board .THen go 400 million light years from earth and watch the dinos play.
or 2000 light years from earth and see who christ realy was .

Alien DNA, you might be interested in reading about the Webb Telescope.

Yeah pretty interesting thanks for that Umbrax.

You pose some very interesting questions....forget very, how about awesome questions. I cant wait to see what comes of the new webb telescope also.

i guess if it's possible that there are alternate realities and dimensions and universes, they may not all be running on the same time...so if you found a way in to one of these dimensions, you could end up in a reality that is earth, but 2000 years ago. then again i've got nothing to back up this claim...i guess it's more of a 'i wish'.

Think about this light disapates rather shortly after it is reflected off an object... so 100 thousand light years away the lights of the object is very faint ...the reason it will never happen with a telescope is like our satallites
looking in our bedroom window... it takes a huge telescope to even do that now say we are the size of a atom we would have to create a telescope equal to a real microscope to see something that small .
another thing to think about is some things are so small and delicate the light we use to see them destroyes what we are looking at... also light travleing 100 thousand light years bends and warps due to gravity and other anomallys in space... so the people are "alians" we would be looking for would be so blurry we wouldnt even realize they were there.