system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
If I were on a space station 2 light years away?

Ok, so basically say I, right now, was instantaneously teleported via some kind of magic to a space station 2 light years away. I have a telescope on this space station that is so powerful I can see people walking around on city streets in minute detail, would the planet I see be Earth in the year 2017?

And if so could I theoretically see myself walking around on the surface of planet back in 2017?
gpt
Yes, because the light takes two years to reach you, so you're seeing a two year old image.

You would of course need an enormous telescope to see that level of resolution - *much* bigger than a planet. You also can't actually use this to see into your own past, because you can't travel faster than light - this only works in a hypothetical thought experiment where you can magically teleport, or at least travel faster than light. So even though an alien civilization in the Virgo Cluster might see the Milky Way as it was when dinosaurs were (just) still on Earth, you can't fly to the Virgo Cluster and build a giant telescope and use it to directly observe dinosaurs.