Originally Posted by forrest noble

Hornblower,



Sorry Hornblower. Thought your above comment was rhetorical.

I think it goes like this Hornblower. As you're standing on Earth at high noon you get out your trusty telescope. It's not just any telescope, it happens to be the best optical telescope in the world. You try to find the planet Mercury but you can't see it. You know exactly where it is relative to the position of the sun but it simply cannot be seen.

The problem is that the light from the sun like other light are waves. In the case of a star like our sun so close to us its waves are very powerful coming through our atmosphere. Regardless of your efforts to see the small reflected light coming from the planet Mercury at high noon you could see nothing.
You bring out the photo plates. You try all different exposure times and frequencies, you still can see nothing. The problem is that there is refracted light pollution in our atmosphere from the sun. Through refraction, the light of the sun is spread all everywhere in our atmosphere. The tiny reflected light from Mercury cannot get through during the day time.

Although at night the earth also produces copious quantities of EM radiation as you suggested, this radiation is of low frequency and intensity. Infrared heat radiation is comprised of long wave lengths compared to light frequencies. Star light is relatively much more intense so that their comparatively short waves would move right through outward moving infrared radiation. This same effect would be multiplied by countless millions so that an optical telescope near the sun could never see anything other than the sun itself. The same thing would be true of white dwarf star, although their mass has condensed, their light would still be super-strong near the star's surface blocking out the ability to do any measurements of the speed of incoming light.

Hope this answers your question Hornblower.

Respectfully, forrest