Light Echoes from Our Supermassive Black Hole

[Fraser]

A new set of images from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory show the reflected X-ray emission from a small meal consumed by the supermassive black hole that lurks at the heart of the Milky Way. ...

Read the full blog entry (http://www.universetoday.com/2007/01/11/light-echoes-from-our-supermassive-black-hole/)

[Rob1ooo1oo]

50years ago + time of the distance

[Leed]

How can any science writer make this kind of mistake. The Milky Way galaxy is 33,000 light years across. The center is about 15,000 light years across. The event in the story happened before Man had a civilization. Bad reporting.

[01101001]

The event in the story happened before Man had a civilization. Bad reporting.

What? The "50 years ago"? I can cope.

Perhaps you should work on the Bad Astronomer (http://www.badastronomy.com/), who often dates things as to when we observe them, for instance in entry Mi Cas A es su Cas A (http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2006/08/29/mi-cas-a-es-su-cas-a/):


Footnote: Yes, I know– some of you will think that it didn’t blow up in 1680, that’s just when the light reached us, and it really blew up 10,000 years ago. I disagree. We cannot say anything about that event until the light reaches us, and in a real sense that event has not happened until the light reaches us. Time flows like light, I sometimes say, meaning that the event itself happens when the light reaches us. So it is acceptable to say that the explosion actually happened in 1680.

[RUF]

Aarrg!
So, the cat in the box is not alive (or dead) until we observe it?

Qui Gon Jinn: "Your focus determines your reality."

Do the "Pillars of Creation" still exist? Apparently they don't (not for the past 7000 years), but we will not see their destuction from a supernova shockwave for another 50 years or so.