2 ms·
>Stars and galaxies are. They are as they always[0] were, and always will be >[0] - On human-relevant timescales. This was once orthodoxy, but it was overturn
by perl4ever 5y ago
>Stars and galaxies are. They are as they always[0] were, and always will be
>[0] - On human-relevant timescales.
This was once orthodoxy, but it was overturned ~450 years ago, at least from a Eurocentric perspective.
- If you look at millions of objects, then something that only happens to each one, once in X million years, will be happening to one of them right now. Like a nova.
- If you look at millions of objects, then you will see the one-in-a-million rare one which is doing something on a human timescale. Like a pulsar.
- TeMPOraL 5y agoFair enough. Not something you can spot with a naked eye, though. In this sense, when I'm looking at the night sky, I find satellites more interesting than stars. (My favorite thing to spot were always Iridium flares. I miss those.)
- perl4ever 5y agoVisible supernovas are rare, but there was one in 1987. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SN_1987A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SN_1987A Here is the Wikipedia page for the star that died over 30 years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanduleak_-69_202 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanduleak_-69_202 You can see meteors all the time. A bit of trivia I read somewhere is that your spot on the earth is facing more "into the wind" the later it gets after midnight, so that's when it's best to look for them. Usually meteors are just streaks of light, but once I went partway up a mountain for a forecasted meteor shower and I saw one just like people render it for an illustration (except much smaller because of the distance) - you could see it was a white hot fireball, shading to red, shading to blue, with a long bluish tail.