New star in night sky in 2022

[ATCclears]

Spectacular collision of suns will create new star in night sky in 2022

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[BlackRyder]

Very cool! Hopefully I'll remember to look upwards in 2022...

 

[Bon Sauvage]

Hope I'm still around to see it!

 

[CountryGent]

Very cool. Thanks for the link. I do enjoy star gazing. On that topic, I am reminded of a quote I've always liked:

" A human life, I think, should be well rooted in some area of native land where it may get the love of tender kinship from the earth, for the labors men go forth to, for the sounds and accents that haunt it, for whatever will give that early home a familiar unmistakable difference amidst the future widening of knowledge. The best introduction to astronomy is to think of the nightly heavens as a little lot of stars belonging to one's own homestead." — George Eliot​

 

[HB of CJ]

Wow! 1800 light years. About 14.1 days at Warp 6. Probably longer due to dirty space. Some day we will be able to do it. Right now just staying on Earth and watching the sky will be so cool. Thank you.

 

[transittech]

So this new star was created 1795 years ago, but we are just seeing it now because it's soooo far away. That's the part that really twists my mind.

 

[mkwerx]

Every time you look skyward - you're seeing the past. The closest star system to ours is a little over 4 light years away - so when we see that star, we're seeing something in fairly recent history, however the tiny little dots - we're seeing stuff that happened when Jesus was still roaming the earth, or when Atlantis was above the sea.

Hell - if our own little sun were to explode on us - we wouldn't get the message for the ten minutes or so it takes the light to get here. We don't have Star Trek style FTL communications, scanning, or drive tech (at least that science and the Area 51 guys will admit to) - so the first indication we're dead will be a quick flash then that's it. Kind of like a nuke going off nearby. The upshot - we probably wouldn't have time to even register what's going on before being vaporized, and it's probably painless. Probably.

I'm more interested in the recent announcement that scientists are claiming to have found a very earth like planet near Proxima Centauri - a bit over 4 light years away, the claim is that it's larger than earth, but is a water bearing planet and probably similar in atmospheric makeup. If that's true - we could begin sending out explorer ships in my lifetime to get a first hand view of the place. We would need to perfect cryogenic freezing/waking tech first - but I'm guessing that's a tech we're on the edge of figuring out - maybe 15-20 years down the road. From there - build the ship in space, probably would use something like an ion impulse drive (which I remember reading about as a kid, that NASA was trying to figure out how to make one work) - they *may* be able to reach that planet in my son's lifetime with that kind of tech if nothing went wrong.

I know sending a probe would be cheaper - but humans are too inquisitive to let something like that be done by robots alone. I'd be OK with a higher tax bill to help subsidize that kind of tech advancement and project. The space program jumpstarted American innovation and a technological revolution that lead to the US prospering. A new space program with such a far reaching goal could quite possibly do the same.

An all volunteer mission would have thousands of more applicants than slots. Hell - Space X already has thousands upon thousands signed up to colonize Mars once the tech is there to do it, knowing that it is likely a one-way trip and a harsh, harsh life ahead of them. I do hope to see a Mars colony in my lifetime as well, and maybe a base on the moon.

Still - the aspect of seeing a "new" old star is intriguing.

 

[Osarion]

So this new star was created 1795 years ago, but we are just seeing it now because it's soooo far away. That's the part that really twists my mind.

There's a funny quote from one of my favorite book series -- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

“Even light, which travels so fast that it takes most races thousands of years to realize that it travels at all, takes time to journey between the stars.”

also this

“Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws. The Hingefreel people of Arkintoofle Minor did try to build spaceships that were powered by bad news but they didn't work particularly well and were so extremely unwelcome whenever they arrived anywhere that there wasn't really any point in being there.”

 

[Mark W.]

42

 

[Meridian7750]

42

That's the answer.
What's the question?

 

[ditchtiger]

That's the answer.
What's the question?

what is 6x7?

 

[mkwerx]

That's the answer.
What's the question?

That requires building a special computer to ponder the answer and come up with the question.

 

[jsparks747]

Wow! 1800 light years. About 14.1 days at Warp 6. Probably longer due to dirty space. Some day we will be able to do it. Right now just staying on Earth and watching the sky will be so cool. Thank you.

Yeah. And it has already happened because we won't see the light until 2022. At 1800 light years, it happened in 222. Weird.