Comunicating With Andromeda

Ok so you know how they say, "if you look up at the stars in the night sky, you are seeing light that's taken millions of years to travel to earth, so you are seeing Into the past potentially"? Ok so here's the question. If say I'm on a planet in the Andromeda galaxy, and your on earth looking at me with a super telescope( to where u can actually see me wave at you) and let's say we agreed on a specific time and date to do this. If I start waving at you at the exact time you are observing me with the telescope, do you ever see me wave or does it take millions of years to see me wave at you ?
- Cody Bell (age 28)
Lometa, Texas ,USA

Hi Cody,

Forget about it.   The distance to Andromeda is over 2.5 million light years.   It would take too long to set this rendezvous  up.  But in principle you could do it for a much closer star, for example, Proxima Centauri  which is only 4.4 light years away in our own Milky Way galaxy.   Better yet, try Pluto whose light-distance is only four and a half hours.

LeeH

(published on 02/20/2016)