Check out the picture in this post.
The image you are seeing is a portion of the Eagle Nebula, a stellar nursery in the Serpens constellation, located about 7000 light-years from Earth. This portion of the nebula has been called "The Pillars of Creation," and is one of the most famous image in astronomy. What the images shows are massive columns of gas within the nebula that will one day likely become part of a star.
Sadly, however, it was reported that the columns were destroyed by a supernova explosion about 6,000 years ago. However, since the nebula is located 7,000 light years away, the nebula will continue to appear to us as it once existed and will continue to do so for another thousand years.
Or, perhaps, as young-earth Creationists would have you believe, the pillars never existed at all and were created in an already destroyed state and the image we are seeing never really existed in the first place.
Take your pick (I know which makes more logical sense to me). But be quick... the pillars will only be visible for another millenium.
The Wolf
6 comments:
How do they know that they were destroyed, if the light showing us the Pillars as they were is coming at us at the Speed of Light... how can the information that shows that they've been destroyed get here faster?
okay found an explanation.
Wolf:
Funny, I just read this story on Nasa's site 15 minutes ago. Pretty amazing! Wish I would be around 1000 years from now to see the new stars appear.
Bulls eye! Great find. Either we live in the Matrix or there's a better explanation than that the world is 6,000 years old.
I'll opt for the latter.
See Part 3 of this post for a more detailed (but readable) explanation.
Thanks for that link, Anon. I've known of Phil Plait's (the BadAstronomer) work for a while. He and I go back to another message board that we used to both post on.
I should have known that he'd have something to say about this.
The Wolf
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