http://www.space.com/3154-pillars-creation-toppled-stellar-blast.html





SEATTLE - They helped open the public's eyes to the wonders of space when they were first photographed in 1995, but a new study suggests the famous Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula might have already been toppled long ago, and that what the Hubble Space Telescope actually captured was only a ghost image.

A new picture of the Eagle Nebula shot by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, presented here at the 209th meeting of the American Astronomical Society, show the intact pillars next to a giant cloud of glowing dust scorched by the heat of a massive stellar explosion known as a supernova [image].

"The pillars have already been destroyed by the shockwave," said study leader Nicolas Flagey of The Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale in France.

Astronomers think the supernova's shock wave knocked the pillars down about 6,000 years ago. But because the Eagle Nebula is located some 7,000 light years away, the majestic pillars will appear intact to observers on Earth for another 1,000 years or so.

The supernova blast is thought to have occurred between 6,000 and 9,000 years ago, so what astronomers see now is evidence of the blast just before its destructive shock wave reached the pillars.

Astronomers have long predicted that a supernova blast wave would destroy the famous pillars. One earlier study concluded that the pillars would be destroyed sometime within the next million years. About 20 stars in the region are ripe for exploding and it was only a matter of time before one detonated.

The Eagle Nebula has been studied in infrared wavelengths before, but the new study is the most detailed yet. "What is brand new with Spitzer is that we have access to longer wavelengths," particularly the 70 micron wavelength, Flagey said. "We didn't have access to these wavelengths before."

The new Spitzer image suggests one of the stellar time bombs in the Eagle Nebula has already gone off. Humans living 1,000 to 2,000 years ago might have noticed the supernova event that destroyed the pillars as an unusually bright star in the sky.

"We have checked with historical records, and there might be some candidates," in Chinese history, Flagey said. It's also possible that the supernova was hidden behind huge amounts of interstellar dust that muffled the explosion, he added.

In an end befitting their name, astronomers think that gas and dust from the pillar's destruction will help give birth to a new generation of stars.

Editor's Note: All week, SPACE.com is providing complete coverage of the 209th meeting of the American Astronomical Society.

Interesting. It made me think that if contact was made with other life out there, could we ever meet?
Would either planet exist in each other's 'time'?
Or even 'life' on the planets.

The universe is always changing. Bright stars supernova and go dim, new planets are being born all the time.

not with our level of sciences now... only if they(aliens) had the tech to get here...at our currant speed of space craft, it would take about 100 years for us to get to the closest star other than our sun, which is about 4 lights years away... The voyager probes were made and launched in the 70's, and just now only leaving our solar system...

we all would live in the same "time", but the distance is whats making you ask this... we see things in the past because of the time it takes light to travel, but everything we see has the same time we do, if it hasn't been destroyed... think of it as watching TV, we see things happen after the fact, but they are still in our real time...

true, but sometimes it takes millions/billions of years for the light to get to us...

Maybe they should make a cellular telescope with cone and rod cells.

The eye in the sky.

If they 'saw' us though and had the capability of getting to us. We may not exist anymore by the time they got here?
Is that correct or not?
I cant quite get my head around this conundrum...

It once was common during wars, that letters from a soldier would reach their destination only after news of the soldiers' death had already arrived.

The gold record included on the Voyager Spacecraft, included the voice of then Secretary General of the United Nations, Kurt Waldheim. He is already dead, and so far as is known, Voyager is not thought to have left our own Solar System before he passed away. It will take over 40,000 more years for Voyager to reach another Solar System.

Fortunately, we will not be held accountable for additional postage.

It all reminds me of a message in a bottle.
Destination and survival of message unknown.
My family still has my Grandfather's letters and death telegram somewhere.
The anxiety you read in them is heartbreaking.

Correct. If there is some observer from a Star system 10,000 light years away. It will take that many years for the light from our planet to reach them. So none of us here now will still be around, unless there is a crazy miracle breakthrough in medical science just around the corner. After they have seen us. Nothing we know of can travel faster than the speed of light, so even if they launched a spacecraft immediately it would take 10,000 years more on earth for that spacecraft to get to us. so. Which would be 20,000 years after the original light image of us as we are now. The human race could possibly be wiped out by then.

Frankly, those cosmic pics are both terrific & terrifying
(with the terrifying getting to me first )

Then as Tulip mentions: , seems to be the next logical step.

In other words, a future gen space observatory would logically be an eye that talks to itself instead of NASA who are light years away.

Sounds reasonable, the Eye deciding to look in a particular direction deciding when to quit and swivel & scan for 'next episode' of cosmic events.
I suppose, NASA has already encapsulated 'light years' in their 'Eye in the Sky' program

Over-sized image removed, feel free to
repost with a smallified version.

soufie
Site Moderator

http://www.universetoday.com/15403/how-long-would-it-take-to-travel-to-the-nearest-star/

depends on the propulsion system being used...

on a related note...








Betelgeuse is a star nearing the end of its life. Because it is creating heavier and heavier elements in its core that could be used for stars after it dies, a NASA story once dubbed the red giant a workaholic.

The star is a famous one among amateur astronomers not only for its size and brightness, but also because it is part of Orion, a bright winter constellation in the Northern Hemisphere.

Professional astronomers also keep a close eye on the star, as it is notoriously variable: its diameter changes from anywhere between 550 to 920 times the sun's diameter. In 2013, astronomers said Betelgeuse is likely to crash into a "cosmic wall" of interstellar dust in a few thousand years.

Ancient astronomers would have easily spotted Betelgeuse because of its size and relatively close distance from Earth: it is about 600 light-years away and has a variable brightness generally peaking at 0.4 and falling below 1.2. Some 20th-century observations by the American Association of Variable Star Observers suggested peak magnitudes of 0.2 in 1933 and 1942. It is the 12th brightest star in the night sky. [The Brightest Stars in the Sky: A Starry Countdown]

The star's location is:

Right ascension: 05 hours 55 minutes 10.3 seconds
Declination: +07 degrees 24 minutes 25 seconds

It is probable that the name "Betelgeuse" originated in Arabic words, but the star had other names (for example) in Sanskrit, traditional Chinese and even in Hawaiian; in the latter, it was known as Kauluakoko.

The coming supernova

When astronomers say Betelgeuse is expected to explode soon, they mean shortly in astronomical terms: within a million years, according to several sources. Predicting exactly when it will turn into a supernova is difficult, however, as it depends on precise calculations of its mass as well as an understanding of what is going on inside the star.

Betelgeuse is so vast — its size would extend beyond Jupiter's orbit if it were placed in the sun's position in the solar system — that several telescopes have captured images of the star and spotted it shedding mass. Starting in 1993 and continuing for at least 15 years, its radius shrank by 15 percent, an astonishing amount for so short a time.

"We do not know why the star is shrinking," said Edward Wishnow, a research physicist at UC Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory, in 2009.

"Considering all that we know about galaxies and the distant universe, there are still lots of things we don't know about stars, including what happens as red giants near the ends of their lives."

Nearing the wall

As the star prepares for what could be a large explosion, another challenge awaits: it is expected to crash into a wall of interstellar dust in the next few thousand years.

An infrared Herschel Space Observatory image released in 2013 suggested it would crash into the dust at a speed of 66,960 miles per hour (107,761 kilometers per hour.)

The crash would take a while to complete: the solar wind is expected to touch the line around 5,000 years from now, with the heart of the star crashing into the bar 12,500 years after that.

Yes, they should. That would be cool.

Why can't somebody build a nuclear spacecraft that would maybe actually allow us to see some of these in reality & not only in fantasies

main reason: they are 4000 light years away...

So they say

lol, i'm not real sure about it either...