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Tuesday, 03 November, 2009
Watch For Old Light
(with comments)
The lighter side of the news: 13 billion-year-old light finally reaches Earth.
Distant-starx-large Light from a star that exploded over 13 billion years ago is just now reaching Earth. The star is about 13.1 billion light years away and sets the record for the farthest object in space to be observed, according to two separate studies in Nature magazine.
So if you see some light that looks really, really, old, you'll know where it came from.
- By kashmarek. Comment posted 03-Nov-2009 @01:53pm:Light doesn't look really really old. You have to measure some properties of the light to determine how far away the source is.
The significance of this is that observations have not found any light sources that are older. Thus, this approximates the age of the known universe as light from further away hasn't reached here yet. However, it the remaining years of our lives, don't expect the 13.1 billion year estimate to change much. - By NoHelp. Comment posted 03-Nov-2009 @02:27pm:How could the light have traveled 13 billion light years if the universe is only a little more than 6,000 years old?
Something doesn't quite jibe. - By wally the duck. Comment posted 03-Nov-2009 @02:33pm:I thought maybe it would have yellowed a bit with age, but it sounds like kashmarek has some inside stuff about this.
- By Evil Klown. Comment posted 03-Nov-2009 @02:58pm:So that light started traveling our way 8.5 billion years before the Earth was even formed.
- By . Comment posted 03-Nov-2009 @03:00pm:It yellowed so much it's red, wally …
- By Minderbinder. Comment posted 03-Nov-2009 @03:18pm:Objects in mirror may be closer than they appear. Maybe it's just the tail light on Voyager I.
- By wally the duck. Comment posted 03-Nov-2009 @05:45pm:Just call me Dr. Doppler and color me red.
- By Dean Booth. Comment posted 03-Nov-2009 @06:33pm:I don't understand how we could get here before the light did.
- By Evil Klown. Comment posted 04-Nov-2009 @05:20am:
I don't understand how we could get here before the light did.
Start walking from NYC to San Francisco. When you get there, you'll be eating sour bread that wasn't there when you started. - By . Comment posted 04-Nov-2009 @10:54am:If it is old light, does that mean it came from the Old Lamplighter, of long, long, ago?
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