The Time Machine
Did you ever realize that when you look up at the night sky, you are travelling back in time and looking at the past?
Even though light travels at 186,000 miles per second, the stars are so far away that the light you see has travelled for years across space before it reaches your eye. Astronomers use the distance light travels in one year (6 million million miles, if you can get your head round that) as a unit of measure and talk of stars being so many light-years from us.
Alpha Centauri is 4 light-years away from earth. It is astonishing to think that 4 years ago a beam of light left Alpha Centauri and has travelled at 186,000 miles a second ever since and is only now arriving at earth. When you look at Alpha Centauri you are not seeing the star as it is now but as it would have looked 4 years ago.
By jumping from star to star you can travel back in time. Below is a list of bright stars and a list of events that were happening on earth when the beams of light left these stars.
As a disclaimer, this was written in 2025.
SIRIUS - the brightest star in the night sky. 8.5 light years away
2016 was a tumultuous year with Donald Trump being elected to the Whitehouse and Britain voting to leave the EU. However, it will always be remembered for Leicester City winning the English Premier League.
ALTAIR - the brightest star in the constellation Aquila - 16.7 light years away
On the downside, 2008 saw a huge global financial crisis. On the plus side, Breaking Bad hit our screens.
VEGA - the brightest star in Lyra. 25 light years away
2000 saw the world celebrate a new millennium. The Y2K bug didn't break the world's computer systems. J Lo did break hearts in a green Versace dress at the Grammys.
ARCTURUS - the fourth brightest star in our night's sky. 37 light years away
1988 - The film Die Hard starring Bruce Willis is released. Australia celebrates 200 years of independence, a concert at Wembley stadium for Nelson Mandela draws a crowd of over 80,000. Adele is born.
ALDEBARAN - an orange giant star in Taurus. 65 light years away
1960 is a big year for music. The Beatles make their first public appearance in Hamburg. Elvis Presley is discharged from the US army.
ANTARES - the brightest star in Scorpius. 550 light years away
In 1475, Michelangelo, the painter of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, sculptor and poet is born in Tuscany.
RIGEL - A blue super giant in the constellation Orion. 860 Light Years away.
1165 sees the death of Malcolm IV of Scotland and the return of Pope Alexander III from exile to Rome. What can I say, it was a slow year.
Beyond the Stars
M13 - the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules - 25,000 light years away
You are now looking at an object that is 25,000 ly from earth. When the light left this glorious cluster of stars, a small hamlet consisting of huts built of rocks and of mammoth bones was founded in what is now Moravia in the Czech Republic. This is the oldest human permanent settlement that has yet been found by archaeologists.
The Andromeda Galaxy - 2.5 million light years away
Away from light pollution, this incredible galaxy can be seen with the naked eye. You are now looking at an object that is beyond our own galaxy, the Milky Way. 2.5 million years ago, was the beginning of a period of multiple glaciation on earth known as the Ice Ages. It saw the emergence of a new species, Homo Habilis, an extinct species of archaic human from the Early Pleistocene epoch. Even Homo Sapiens hadn't turned up on earth yet!!
