Kiranga
Platinum Member
- Jan 29, 2009
- 71,270
- 105,468
The fact that the star is some 165,000 light years away combined with the fact that the star is a giant (the bigger a star is the shorter it's lifespan, on average) points to the large possibility that the star may not even be there now. If one was to extinguish the sun we wouldn't know for another 8 minutes, if one was to extinguish this star we wouldn't know for another 165,000 years. Then how do we know that it is there? We can't, the best we can do is know that it was there 165,000 years ago.
Indeed Einstein's relativity says it is all relative, there is no one "now". Some scientists are of the theory that this star couldn't have formed independently and it is actually a result of the merging of two stars.
Even if you take 10% of the distance to this star in terms of light years, and say that it extinguished 16,500 years ago, all the history of the world wouldn't have been there, the Egyptians, Babylonians, Chaldeans, etc were not there yet, at least not as civilizations, this was pretty much pre history. And that is just 10% of the figure.
To put the 165,000 light years in perspective, it takes light 8 minutes to travel from the sun to the earth (93 million miles), cross multiply 8 minutes gives 93 million miles, how many miles will 165,000 years give? Ridiculously large, that is why they use light years.
Indeed Einstein's relativity says it is all relative, there is no one "now". Some scientists are of the theory that this star couldn't have formed independently and it is actually a result of the merging of two stars.
Even if you take 10% of the distance to this star in terms of light years, and say that it extinguished 16,500 years ago, all the history of the world wouldn't have been there, the Egyptians, Babylonians, Chaldeans, etc were not there yet, at least not as civilizations, this was pretty much pre history. And that is just 10% of the figure.
To put the 165,000 light years in perspective, it takes light 8 minutes to travel from the sun to the earth (93 million miles), cross multiply 8 minutes gives 93 million miles, how many miles will 165,000 years give? Ridiculously large, that is why they use light years.