Yes! Isn't that wild?? It blows my mind. This is why I love astronomy. Looking into our night sky is looking hundreds and hundreds of years into the past.
It's wild to think that this may be the first (?) time in recorded history that the night sky may change for Earth. Imagine how many have relied on the sky for navigational purposes. I don't think anyone expects the night sky to ever change in our lifetime.
Crazy theory - what if the Star of Bethlehem was a supernova? I mean, that would explain a random story about an extra bright star appearing, right?
It's wild to think that this may be the first (?) time in recorded history that the night sky may change for Earth. Imagine how many have relied on the sky for navigational purposes. I don't think anyone expects the night sky to ever change in our lifetime.
Crazy theory - what if the Star of Bethlehem was a supernova? I mean, that would explain a random story about an extra bright star appearing, right?
This is the explanation that astronomers have come up with. tl;dr - Hughes's best explanation for this series of events is something known as a triple conjunction between Jupiter and Saturn - with the two planets coming close together in the sky three times over a short period.
So does this mean then that its possible it already exploded, like 680 years ago and we just don't know it yet?
Yes! Isn't that wild?? It blows my mind. This is why I love astronomy. Looking into our night sky is looking hundreds and hundreds of years into the past.
Even on a smaller scale (so to speak), the fact that the sun we are looking at on any given day is 8 minutes old. I love it.
Yes! Isn't that wild?? It blows my mind. This is why I love astronomy. Looking into our night sky is looking hundreds and hundreds of years into the past.
Even on a smaller scale (so to speak), the fact that the sun we are looking at on any given day is 8 minutes old. I love it.
And it takes something like 5 hours for that same light to reach Pluto.
"The ancient star's main-sequence days of fusing hydrogen in its core are done; it ran out of hydrogen some time ago, and is now fusing helium into carbon and oxygen."
I didn't know stars started fusing other elements after they ran out of hydrogen! Now I wonder what comes after helium. At what point does the star stop fusing entirely?