Would there theoretically be an accompanying effect to something moving beyond the speed of light?
I have only encountered the "Sonic Boom" a couple of times in my life, once when I was lucky enough to watch Concorde fly over my town in the late 70's.
In a story I'm writing someone claims to have encountered/observed something that travelled Faster than Light. And obviously the question is "How would they know how fast it was going?"
I would be interested to know if there is any thought or theory as to whether a vehicle or object moving faster than the speed of LIGHT would have a similar light based effect. I assume it would create a hell of a sonic boom, but would there be a massive flash, or a mirage type bending of light as well?
Are there any other theoretical tell tale signs that something had travelled faster than light as opposed to just "Really really fast"?
For example purposes, let's assume the object in question would be roughly the same size as a passenger plane.
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One effect could be the illusion that the craft is moving backward, as the light from the vehicle being close to you reaches you before the light of the vehicle being further away.
This would only happen if the vehicle was moving toward you.
Edit: thinking about it a little more, what you'd likely see is a streak flashing out from the point of closest approach in both directions, forward and back...
Another possibility would be a radiation burst followed by a radio burst, as the light is red shifted/blue shifted way out of the visible spectrum and into gamma rays as it is moving toward you, and radio waves as it is moving away from you.
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