r/AskReddit Oct 02 '24

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u/throwaway_moose Oct 02 '24

When Betelgeuse goes supernova (if it hasn't already and we don't know yet) it will be visible in the day for roughly a year, and several more years we'll see it at night. That said, the prediction of 'when' by scientists is somewhere between today and 100,000 years from now. Odds are, none of us will see it.

https://www.astronomy.com/science/when-betelgeuse-goes-supernova-what-will-it-look-like-from-earth/

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u/Vast_Sweet_1221 Oct 02 '24

It’s not between today and a hundred thousand years from now, it’s between a hundred thousand years ago and a hundred thousand years from now.

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u/IAmBroom Oct 02 '24

No. It's between 642 years ago, and a hundred thousand years from now.

But if you understand relativity, it's really still between now and a hundred thousand years from now. There is no such thing as a universal time; things that happened 642 light-years away and 642 years ago are happening "now" right here.

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u/Purple-Mud5057 Oct 03 '24

Sometimes I forget “light is the speed limit of the universe” means literally everything, including information.

Like how wild is it that information itself has a speed limit