Astronomers, thanks to an accident of gravitational lensing, have spotted an individual star at a distance so great they can usually only find galaxies. They nicknamed it Icarus, which in a way seems strange because that individual had his problems when he flew too close to the sun and this one's as far away as anything anyone's ever seen.
The scientists think the star is about 10 billion light years away, which means we're seeing light that started heading towards us when the universe was only about 4.4 billion years old. It's almost certain that Icarus, a blue supergiant, is no longer there, having burned out or blown up long ago.
Which means that if the same gravitational lensing accident made us visible from where it is, we're still safe from aliens visiting upon us the consequences of sticking ourselves with a choice between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump for president.
No comments:
Post a Comment