Wednesday, May 12, 2010

That star died a million years ago

I have been working on some telescope projects and it got me thinking about stars and light. It is a difficult thing to wrap my mind around but there are stars that we see that are dead.
Let me explain. You probably already know that the starlight we see isn't in the present - it is the light that emitted from the star a long time ago and if that star is 10,000 light years away then that light we are now receiving left that star 10,000 years ago. Well, we are able to see light from stars that are millions of light years away and this means that right now in our now some of those stars are dead - yet their light continues on through the universe.

Ok, the simile is easy to see and you probably already taken a guess at my point here. Same as the star, once we die, does our light continue on?

Ahh.... nope... .that is way too easy. What I am proposing here is that we look at it a bit differently.

What I am suggesting is, and of course it is just a thought, but what about the possibility that in our current configuration and shape we are not the star .... but the light?