Hubble probes star death blast clue to universe riddle
Astronomers have photographed the faint embers of a star explosion that happened 9 billion years ago. The pic, snapped by the Hubble Telescope and published this month, is particularly significant because it helps boffins measure the rate at which the universe is expanding. This gives them a handle on understanding the …
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Did anyone else first read the headline as 'Death Star Explosion...'?
it did happen a long long time ago
in a galaxy far far away
@Ian
Ayups. Discovered the mishap when I saw no rings on the pictures ;-)
Awesome!!
And last year I was already happy about seeing two type Ia supernovae at 69 and 21 million light years respectively from my back garden. Granted, I only have 8 inches of aperture at my disposal, but 9 billion light years puts things into perspective.
Nuclear blast, because a supernova puts nuclear bombs into perspective.
Typo in article
Article says explosion happened 9Bn LY's away - 1/3 the age of the universe.
Article should say 2/3rds age of universe as 9/13 ~ 2/3
No typo
9 billion light years is the equivalent of seeing something when the universe was a third of the age it is now. If the star was 2/3 of the age of the universe then it would be approximately 3 to 4 billion light years away. Distance is inverse to age in this case.
No, one-third is right; 9 / 13 is two-thirds since then.
It's our sitcoms and reality shows!
Obviously "the mysterious dark energy that they posit is propelling matter outwards as a repulsive force". It's not that the universe is expanding. It's just that everything everywhere is trying to get away from us.
Outward??
Dark energy propels things outward??? With no center and no edge, there is no "outward". Perhaps these scientists were getting smaller and only thought everything was moving away.
LOL
I read your post as "Perhaps these scientists were getting smellier and only thought everything was moving away" and began to come to terms with it until I read it again!
Has no one queried...
...a white dwarf going supernova after a maximum of 4.45bn years. I thought they had longer lives than that.
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