Starship Asterisk*

On the advice of Trance Gemini and Beka the II, Captain Dylan Hunt fired the remainder of his ship Andromeda's nova bombs into the central vicinity of the Magog home world. Acknowledgments to Mr. Harper for his success in fabricating the nova bombs based on Chief Engineer Hoon and his designs. Solar system sized effects from the iron core fragments resulting from the bombs can be seen leaving gaseous trails behind the glowing iron 'bullet' remnants. (LOL)

Yeah, those bombs were impressive, but this image is even more so...

The field of view of this image is about 50 arcseconds across and structure on 0.1 arcsecond (2 pixel) scales is visible.

0.1 arc-second resolution from a ground-based scope!!! Truly incredible!

-Noel

In the description for the “bullet pillars” in Orion it states that they are approximately 1000 years old…but Orion is 1500 light years away. If these structures are only 1000 years old then the light they emitted when they were created would still be 500 light years away from Earth…

How can we see them if this is correct?

1500 ly away is distance and time, you're right. So if we see something that is 1000 yrs old (time only) then really it's now 2500 years old.

We're observing something as it was 1500 years ago... even though it appears to us as if it's happening now.

This brings up some other subjects that are interesting...

What happens when we finally get up the technology to travel to other stars... that are light years away... only to discover something catastrophic happened and... that star's not really there anymore!?

FreebirdsWB wrote:1500 ly away is distance and time, you're right. So if we see something that is 1000 yrs old (time only) then really it's now 2500 years old.

We're observing something as it was 1500 years ago... even though it appears to us as if it's happening now.

This brings up some other subjects that are interesting...

What happens when we finally get up the technology to travel to other stars... that are light years away... only to discover something catastrophic happened and... that star's not really there anymore!?

That one's easy.
We pop next door.

FreebirdsWB wrote:We're observing something as it was 1500 years ago... even though it appears to us as if it's happening now.

This brings up some other subjects that are interesting...

What happens when we finally get up the technology to travel to other stars... that are light years away... only to discover something catastrophic happened and... that star's not really there anymore!?

That also brings up some interesting questions like: What does the universe actually look like right now? I mean the further away we see an object the more inaccuratly we know it's location... Is there any way we can (by using the objects direction and speed) project it into its "right now" location? I mean all the theories about the universe may be totally wrong because we're not seeing the "real" universe...who knows what the whole thing looks like right at this very second...mega galaxy clusters may not even exist any more for all we know?

Hawkgirl wrote:

FreebirdsWB wrote:We're observing something as it was 1500 years ago... even though it appears to us as if it's happening now.

This brings up some other subjects that are interesting...

What happens when we finally get up the technology to travel to other stars... that are light years away... only to discover something catastrophic happened and... that star's not really there anymore!?

That also brings up some interesting questions like: What does the universe actually look like right now? I mean the further away we see an object the more inaccuratly we know it's location... Is there any way we can (by using the objects direction and speed) project it into its "right now" location? I mean all the theories about the universe may be totally wrong because we're not seeing the "real" universe...who knows what the whole thing looks like right at this very second...mega galaxy clusters may not even exist any more for all we know?

Oh now we're getting into scary territory...
What if the rest of the universe blew up some time ago and it hasn't got to us yet?
Although I guess we'd be able to see it coming and would have a few thousand years to step to one side.

Regarding the APOD of March 26th, the Explanation states "The age of the bullets, which can be found from their speed and distance from IRc2, is very young -- typically less than 1,000 years." It then further states that they are found in the Orion Nebula, which lied some 1500 light years away.

That would mean that the Bullet Pillars are also 1500 light years away. If they are less than a thousand years old, their light wouldn't reach us for another 500 years, and they would be invisible to us. Or so it would seem, given the data stated in the Explanation.

Am I wrong and have I misunderstood the data? Or has their, perhaps been a typo in the Explanation?

They mean that the pillars are 1000 years old at the epoch we observe them - so 1500 years ago when the photons we observe left the pillars they were 1000 years old.

Imagine a supernova might have blown up a few years ago in the our local galactic vicinity, it's intense light and radiation speeding toward Earth to annihilate us as we speak... Will the supernova burn us out or a rogue asteroid blast us first? No need for macabre speculation, though... From a relativistic perspective, the universe IS exactly as we see it in any way that matters, since nothing travels faster than light.

Chances are much greater we'll have car accidents or get struck by lightning.

-Noel

NoelC wrote:From a relativistic perspective, the universe IS exactly as we see it in any way that matters, since nothing travels faster than light.

I've read some places that Gravity travels faster than light...so wouldn't it's effects make a difference depending on where stuff is right this second and not where we see that it was millions of years ago?

Thank you, Cosmo!

That makes much more sense. I appreciate your clearing that up!

There has been some scientific debate on that, but experiments with radio waves passing Jupiter were done not long ago with results that supported the theory of relativity, which has the effects of gravity traveling at the speed of light.

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn3232

-Noel