<p>Just a quick nerd-note: Saying it exploded “halfway” across the universe is misleading, as the universe (although ~14 billion years old) has expanded many times over since then. So although the light was emitted from the star when it was 7.5 billion light-years away, it is much further by now due to cosmic inflation. </p>
<p>So, yeah. Pretty awesome, and if there’s other intelligent life near us (which the odds are astronomically in favor of) it’s probably looking at this thing as well. </p>
<p>Here’s something really cool: Our own sun formed out of a collapsed cloud of dust and gas. What caused the cloud to collapse? Most likely, the reverberations from a nearby supernova. So it is entirely possible that the SN we’re looking at, which exploded 7.5 billion years ago, has since caused the formation of one or many suns with life-bearing planets around them. </p>
<p>Misleading title. It should say “Star explodes 7.5 billion years ago.”</p>
<p>LIFE BEARING PLANETS! Even though this is very possible, the odds of contacting other intelligent life are very slim. We’d need to somehow harness and manipulate gamma rays to carry out our signals for us.</p>
<p>“Just a quick nerd-note: Saying it exploded “halfway” across the universe is misleading, as the universe (although ~14 billion years old) has expanded many times over since then. So although the light was emitted from the star when it was 7.5 billion light-years away, it is much further by now due to cosmic inflation.”</p>
<p>but when it actually exploded, it was halfway across the universe, right? and when you say “it is much further by now” … is there anything left there to expand along with the universe?
(non-science person talking, i’m just trying to figure this out )</p>
<p>“Halfway across the universe” is misleading because it’s a meaningless definition, due to the scale changes and lack of relative frame of reference (as Aero said). It’s why we have to measure distances using only constant units (ly and parsecs), conventional distances like miles don’t apply. </p>
<p>Also, cosmic inflation doesn’t occur at a steady rate, and the gravitational force between clusters/superstructures often works against inflation, so we don’t know exactly where the sucker is now.</p>
<p>Chances are, there’s intelligent life way closer to us than the site of the explosion. It’s awesome to think about, though. I wish I could’ve seen the afterglow.</p>
<p>Nah man, we landed a probe on Titan and there was nothing there :(</p>
<p>But the galaxy is big as hell. Even if there’s some dudes chilling on say, the Perseus arm (one “spiral” in the Milky Way), they’re 6,500 lightyears away… if they are looking at us through telescopes, they see an Earth where the Great Pyramid hasn’t even been built yet. So whatever’s out there, we probably won’t make contact with it in any of the lifetimes of the people posting here.</p>
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