Archeological Viewing?

[sojourner]

So given the technological capabilities of the Federation, do you think they would setup giant telescopes in space to view past history on given planets? I could even envision whole rings of telescopes situated at different distances from important planets such as earth in order to try and cover the goings - on of the entire planet at different periods in history.

 

[kkozoriz1]

It would be kind of difficult considering the planet is rotating all the time. Add in weather effects and I can't really see it working.

 

[sojourner]

It would be kind of difficult considering the planet is rotating all the time. Add in weather effects and I can't really see it working.

Hence the rings of telescopes to cover it as it turns. Clouds don't slow down military spy satellites too much. Besides, at those distances, one satellite can cover at least 1/4 a rotational day without even moving.

 

[SonicRanger]

The problem would be, if one is using visible light, the problem of spatial resolution at a few hundred or thousand light-years. The physics makes it virtually impossible.

At best, perhaps one could use visible-light spectroscopy, as we do now, to look for elements in the atmosphere and study, say, pollution and industrialization.

Alternative, they could try to pick up the radio and other transmissions to learn about the past. That would be much more feasible.

 

[kkozoriz1]

But the telescopes would have to be hundreds or thousands of light years away. What's the circumfrence of a circle that big? If r=1000 ly then the curcumrence is 6200 ly. That's a lot of telescopes to monitor one planet.

 

[sojourner]

^I'm not sure what your concern is with the circumference? At the distance indicated you would really only need one about every 90 degrees around the circle.

 

[B.J.]

Considering the images that the E-D got from the Argus Array in "Parallels", it seems the Federation does have the technology to see that far (assuming it wasn't a parallel universe only tech), but they were seeing current day images. So I'm guessing that the tech has to use some sort of subspace tech or whatever, that would probably prevent them seeing the (relativistic) past.

 

[kkozoriz1]

^I'm not sure what your concern is with the circumference? At the distance indicated you would really only need one about every 90 degrees around the circle.

That depends on what you're looking at. Weather? Sure, that will work. Building the pyramids? Sure. A civil war battle? Probably not as it rotates past you. Depends in the size of your target, how much it's moving, the duration of the event and cloud cover. I suppose you could move towards the planet and capture the event in fast motion and then slow it down to watch it.

 

[Timo]

Considering the images that the E-D got from the Argus Array in "Parallels", it seems the Federation does have the technology to see that far (assuming it wasn't a parallel universe only tech), but they were seeing current day images.

One wonders... The images might have been a couple of decades out of date for all we know; Utopia Planitia might have had Galaxy components lying around in the early 2340s already, for example. Perhaps Argus was located just 30 ly from Mars?

Starship sensors and subspace telescopes do seem to provide realtimish information about distant targets. But not very accurate information, and not with good coverage: they don't reveal exploding planets at Ceti Alpha or L-374 or tell you where USS Exeter might be stranded. Some sort of special instrumentation would probably be needed for the sort of history monitoring proposed, then - something that Starfleet doesn't regularly operate for either scientific or military purposes.

I guess the technologically most feasible application of the concept would be forensic: taking a look at the space battle that concluded some hours or days ago and establishing whether it was Klingons or Orions or a Space Amoeba that did USS Bullseye in.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[sojourner]

^I'm not sure what your concern is with the circumference? At the distance indicated you would really only need one about every 90 degrees around the circle.

That depends on what you're looking at. Weather? Sure, that will work. Building the pyramids? Sure. A civil war battle? Probably not as it rotates past you.

Why not? You think with the technology available they would have trouble with a moving target? Most civil war battles took place in open fields, if the weather is good, no problem. Now, trying to see something take place in downtown New York might pose problems as buildings get in your way as the viewing position rotates through.

 

[B.J.]

Starship sensors and subspace telescopes do seem to provide realtimish information about distant targets. But not very accurate information, and not with good coverage: they don't reveal exploding planets at Ceti Alpha or L-374 or tell you where USS Exeter might be stranded. Some sort of special instrumentation would probably be needed for the sort of history monitoring proposed, then - something that Starfleet doesn't regularly operate for either scientific or military purposes.

True, but the tech doesn't seem to be able to be deployed on starships at this point in time. The Argus Array was *huge* compared to the E-D, and it doesn't seem to be able to do passive monitoring - it seemed implied to me that the array had to be tasked to look at specific things. So yeah, it wouldn't detect exploding planets unless it was already looking in that direction.

 

[Starlock]

Remember ST:TOS - "The Squire of Gothos" ?

Trelayne had a telescope that he would use to observe the past history of worlds, especially that of Earth.

But, of course, he had near Q level techology to make it work.

 

[kkozoriz1]

We're also dealing with diminishing numbers of photons the further away we go, hence the further into the past we can see.

 

[sojourner]

^Computer interpolation can make for that... Enhance!

 

[Lieut. Arex]

They don't need to make the effort. We saw in "Assignment: Earth", Starfleet has sent starships to the past for historical research using the slingshot method. Long-term observations of pre-spaceflight civilizations could be conducted by dropping probes in orbit then retrieving them or their data later. The UFP also has access to the Guardian of Forever for the same thing, per "Yesteryear". It might make for an interesting experiment, but why build all those telescopes when you can fly or even walk to the past?

 

[publiusr]

I can see the Federation wanting telescopes/sensor arrays at equilateral points around the galaxy to link them in a Milky-Way-wide interferometer to look at extra-galactic destinations.

Talk about a VLA

This might also give views of events in the past in 3D when looking inward--great for holo-vid verification.

 

[Christopher]

The problem would be, if one is using visible light, the problem of spatial resolution at a few hundred or thousand light-years. The physics makes it virtually impossible.

Not necessarily. Have you heard of gravity-focus astronomy?

http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=785

Basically, put a probe at 550 AU out from the Sun or further, and the Sun acts as an enormous gravity lens, a telescope of astonishing resolution. From what I've read about it, it could potentially let you draw detailed maps of planets dozens of parsecs away.

They don't need to make the effort. We saw in "Assignment: Earth", Starfleet has sent starships to the past for historical research using the slingshot method. Long-term observations of pre-spaceflight civilizations could be conducted by dropping probes in orbit then retrieving them or their data later. The UFP also has access to the Guardian of Forever for the same thing, per "Yesteryear". It might make for an interesting experiment, but why build all those telescopes when you can fly or even walk to the past?

Yeah, but those efforts nearly led to the alteration of history. You really think Starfleet would be allowed to keep risking the whole of reality for routine historical research? You'd think the Federation Council would pass laws against such things. And maybe create a Department of Temporal Investigations to enforce them.

 

[kkozoriz1]

They didn't seem to have a problem sending people into the past in Yesteryear.

 

[Lieut. Arex]

They don't need to make the effort. We saw in "Assignment: Earth", Starfleet has sent starships to the past for historical research using the slingshot method. Long-term observations of pre-spaceflight civilizations could be conducted by dropping probes in orbit then retrieving them or their data later. The UFP also has access to the Guardian of Forever for the same thing, per "Yesteryear". It might make for an interesting experiment, but why build all those telescopes when you can fly or even walk to the past?

Yeah, but those efforts nearly led to the alteration of history. You really think Starfleet would be allowed to keep risking the whole of reality for routine historical research? You'd think the Federation Council would pass laws against such things. And maybe create a Department of Temporal Investigations to enforce them.

Hey! Sounds like a good idea for a book.

 

[Christopher]

Gee, ya think?