In last week’s The Universe column, I fielded a reader’s question about galaxy collisions in an expanding universe. The answer deals with vast distances, inscrutable forces and the ultimate fate of the cosmos.
Not all queries are quite so serious. For example, reader David Erickson had this on his mind: “If there were aliens 66 million light-years from Earth, how big a telescope would they need to see dinosaurs?”
Ha! I love this question. I’ve thought of it myself but never worked out the math—except to think, “Probably pretty big,” which turns out to dramatically underestimate the actual answer. But what’s really lovely is that grappling with this admittedly bizarre thought experiment has some real-life implications for the future of the science.
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