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NASA Detects Nearby Mystery Explosion
starexplorer2001 writes "Space.com is reporting that NASA has detected a 'totally new' mystery explosion near our galaxy." From the article: "The event, detected Feb. 18, looks something like a gamma-ray burst (GRB), scientists said. But it is much closer--about 440 million light-years away--than others. And it lasted about 33 minutes. Most GRBs are billions of light-years away and last less than a second or just a few seconds."
I'm going for "how little we understand the universe". All our theories are nice and tidy, but none of them really predict the organized chaos of the universe. They only describe what is possible, probably, or unlikely. Thus every once in a while we come across something that we didn't expect, or (even better) we come across something our current theories can't explain. (Which then results in a greater understanding of the universe, and an update to our theories.) :-)
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That's a lot closer that 10 billion light years away, which is about the age of the universe, depending on which NYT Science Times article you believe.
Think of it this way - life appeared about a billion years ago, so that was twice as long ago as when this event happened. We're seeing an event that happenned a little before the dinosaurs appeared.
Yes, you are. :-) After all, that is set in the future.
I actually thought that the explosion of the Death Star, which occurred "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away" would have just about reached us by now. Watch for a second similar "mystery" explosion in about ten years.
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
Ignoring all the silly posts above, this is a fascinating event. It's nice to know there's still mystery in the universe, and the prospect of seeing a supernova unfold is very exciting. I'm not sure, but I believe a supernova would outshine any other stars in the sky, even from that distance (although this may only be stars within out galaxy). Either way, it will let us get valuable information on the hardest part of a star's life to observe: their death.
That's right: nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, not even information.
Quantam entanglement can.
<nitpick>
Single particles can. For real life example see Cherekov radiation.
</nitpick>
Technically you are correct. However, what most people mean is nothing can travel faster than the speed of light in a vaccuum. Cherekov radiation is just an example of a particle traveling faster than the speed of light in air. While difficult, this is (obviously) not impossible. The speed of light varies depending on the medium it's traveling in, just like sound.
Now, if you accept the quantum mechanics view of the universe, theoretically some things can go faster than the speed of light, eg hawking radiation.
</Supernitpicking>
I believe the light travels about 12 inches in a nanosecond.
Google agrees.
It makes you realize just how fast multi-Gigahertz processors are, doesn't it? Look over at your computer - by the time the light from it reaches your eyes, it's probably already working on it's next instruction.