Earlier this week a star exploded in the night sky and astronomers estimate the blast occurred about 7.5 billion light years away from planet earth.
I’m certain this event went unnoticed by most on this planet and while we were worrying about the details of our lives, there’s a good chance life was completed incinerated for a whole host of planets surrounding the star. Who knows, maybe a planet like ours was in the wake and billions of beings lost their lives?
It’s a possibility and we have to be aware that a star this far away means the explosion we’re seeing now, occurred 7.5 billion years ago. That was before cable tv 🙂 . Here’s the math;
First of all, I’ll repeat the notion – what astronomers just witnessed occurred 7.5 billion years ago. One light year is 5.6 trillion miles and when I tried to multiply that number time 7.5 billion, my calculator shut down and I’m no math genius either, but that’s a long, long, long (add more longs) long way off.
Pretty amazing stuff, but at the same time, I have to wonder for a moment if life came to an abrupt end in this corner of the universe. The display we wonder about could have very well been the last light seen from beings around this star. Nature is tragic beauty and I’m thankful our star will come up in the morning, but there’s no guarantee on that either.