How far is that? A Supernova

[Edbear]

For anyone interested in space, I was listening to the wireless last night and they had an Astronomer on talking about the burst of Gamma rays that hit Earth on the 19th. When they pinpointed where it came from it was from a Supernova, 7.5 billion lightyears away! That of course, means it's taken 7.5 billion years, at the speed of light for us to be able to see it.

Ergo, stating the bleeding obvious, the Supernova happened 7.5 billion years ago!

Now what's more amazing, is that he said that in good night-time conditions, ie. no light pollution, we'd be able to just see it with the naked eye! So our tiny little eyeballs can see an explosion, admittedly a rather large explosion, 7.5 billion lightyears away! Cool or what?

[Ixion]

Quiet! Or next thing you know GiJoe will be heading off there on his Hornet. Only thing that'd stop him is lack of petrol stations along the way.

[gijoe1313]

Quiet! Or next thing you know GiJoe will be heading off there on his Hornet. Only thing that'd stop him is lack of petrol stations along the way.

Tch! I highly resemble that statement T'would be kewl to be an intergalactic biker, only prob would be everything out there trying to kill you like meteors "sorry! Didn't see you mate!" I'd have to have McJim pull me out of a black hole I slid down ... wait for a solar flare to die down before pulling out to beat a comet and then helping some ETs to change their dilithium crystal transmorgifier ...

Would hate to be half way into the pootle and think "did I leave the iron on..."

But yeah 'tis kewl, mind bending some of the concepts it is when you think about it...

[Mental Trousers]

Put your life into perspective at all??

[enigma51]

Whats more amazing is the fact that you are actualy looking at the past cause it would have taken 7.5 billion years for the light to get to earth!

(My astronamy and physics is a bit old but I think thats right)

[Steam]

And how about Saturn eh, there's a GIANT HEXAGON at the north pole of Saturn, a freaking 25000km wide geometric shape.



Hexagon!

[Mikkel]

Super novas are pretty cool.

But Quasars are even more mind boggling.

[henry]

Got any more info? My Dad has a fuck off big telescope. Wouldn't mind taking a look if I knew where.

[Mikkel]

And how about Saturn eh, there's a GIANT HEXAGON at the north pole of Saturn, a freaking 25000km wide geometric shape.

Yes yes, it's a big conspiracy. Stay of the absinthe mate!

You can observe near-perfect symmetry (e.g. geometrical shapes) everywhere in nature if you look close enough...

[Tank]

Got any more info? My Dad has a fuck off big telescope. Wouldn't mind taking a look if I knew where.

wait until dark.

Then look up.

[Edbear]

Got any more info? My Dad has a fuck off big telescope. Wouldn't mind taking a look if I knew where.

No, but you could check out Nat. Radio's website or call them and ask. Or perhaps the Auck observatory?

[Steam]

Got any more info? My Dad has a fuck off big telescope. Wouldn't mind taking a look if I knew where.

No, but you could check out Nat. Radio's website or call them and ask. Or perhaps the Auck observatory?

You can't see it any more but it was visible for a few minutes if you knew the right place to look.
But since it was automatically detected and imaged by computers and satellite observatories, nobody actually saw it with the naked eye because by the time humans were told about it, it had faded to below what we can see with our unaided eyes.

[Edbear]

You can't see it any more but it was visible for a few minutes if you knew the right place to look.
But since it was automatically detected and imaged by computers and satellite observatories, nobody actually saw it with the naked eye because by the time humans were told about it, it had faded to below what we can see with our unaided eyes.

Ah, so my reading specs would be not much help then..

[borg]

7.5 billion lightyears away!

Assuming the calculations used here are correct to figure how far light travels in a year (and bear in mind this is done in miles, not km):

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...2163711AAvH7P6

186000 * 60 seconds * 60 minutes * 24 hours * 365.25 days = 5.87862537 × 10^12

or

186282.397 * 60 * 60 * 24 * 365.25 = 5878625371567.2 miles (light travels in one year)

...then you'd have to multiply that by 7.5 billion years (7,500,000,000)...

5878625371567.2 * 7500000000 = 44089690286754000000000 (4.40897E+22) miles away.

[MisterD]

If that's the sort of thing that floats yer boat then you wanna go here. All the lovely photos ever taken by the Hubble Space Telemascope...

Sample: