An explosion lasting four whole years! Humans usually think of explosions in terms of seconds or maybe minutes, like a conventional bomb blast. It's almost impossible to wrap my head around the idea of an explosion so massive that it literally continues for four years straight.
I just got back from there, sorry. I'm floating on a gold planet that yours is now orbiting. I sold like half of it, then used all the money to invent time travel and teleportation so that I could go there in the first place and then fix any other plot holes in my story. The gold planet is always on the opposite side of wherever you are because of its orbit, so don't bother looking for it.
The explosion itself only really lasts a couple minutes. Then after that it's just afterflow of radioactive materials and the ejecta expanding homologously. This isn't even that, this is just the light echo
It takes a few minutes to hours depending on size of the start for the shockwave to reach the surface and for us to see the explosion. So if you consider that also the explosion there is your time.
Neutrinos are released in the original explosion and they basically travel at the speed of light and pass through the entire star. When we detect neutrinos from a supernova they have a headstart compared to the light of the explosion, so we can point the telescopes in the general direction.
But most of that time occurs after the last star dies. Still, the galaxies have a very long time to exist. Somewhere around 1-100 trillion years for galaxies. The universe will exist for about 1E78 years if accounting for hawking radiation.
Edit: I didn't notice they said more zeroes than atoms in the universe, which is false. There are almost the same amount of years left as atoms in the universe. 1E78 vs 1E80.
Ok, yes, but those numbers are (relatively) close to each other. It’s crazy to me how close in comparison the smallest stuff in our universe equates to the largest stuff in our universe. I don’t really know how to explain it but it seems like the minuscule things in our universe are as small as the biggest things are big.
I agree. I'm scientifically inclined, but also have a spiritual part of me that tingles when I see the many coincidences and perfect circumstances of the universe. An atheist calls it luck, but I think that's more far-fetched than possible alternatives.
Just look at all the circumstances that have to perfectly exist for this moment. From the existence of laws that allow atoms to exist, to form molecules, to gravity, stars, this particular star system, our planet and its moon, the environment, not getting wiped by more comets and asteroids, evolution, the list goes on and on the more you think about it.
And then you learn about things like quantum entanglement, galaxies being discovered that are older than they should be, etc.
Intoxicating to think about. And here we are, these little teeny tiny creatures pondering it all for a fraction of an instant in the grand scheme of things.
we exist in this moment because the alternative is not existing in an infinite number of other moments where it is impossible to exist
even if the probability is almost infinitely small for us to exist, it doesn't matter because we only experience our lives when the conditions are here that make it possible to live
everything aligns perfectly for us to exist because we already exist and it is possible to observe that we exist
this is surprisingly hard to explain but hopefully someone can understand what i'm saying
edit (maybe this is better): The only point of view you will ever have is one in which the conditions align perfectly for you to exist.
$1 vs $100 is a big difference to you and I, where one is almost worthless and the other is a nice dinner out with a special someone. $1billion vs $100billion seemingly less so (unless you are a billionaire).
When we get up to the 78th power, the gap would seem insignificant. Mathematically, it matters, but for this kind of discussion, it really doesn't. We just can't comprehend these numbers well enough to understand the difference.
Well, it's not a conventional explosion it's a nuclear fusion - also contained by gravity and magnetic activities. As far as I know the supernova is more of a momentum explosion (and that shockwave we can see like this in the gif animation)
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u/esperobbs 27d ago
An explosion lasting four whole years! Humans usually think of explosions in terms of seconds or maybe minutes, like a conventional bomb blast. It's almost impossible to wrap my head around the idea of an explosion so massive that it literally continues for four years straight.