Larry Niven had some great science fiction in the 1970s, in which one of the plot twists was that the galactic core had exploded. Based on the latest imaging, that doesn't look like it's happened*. And here is a pretty cool mosaic picture of what the Galactic Core looks like, from the South Africa MeerKAT observatory:
* The light from the galactic core took 25,000 years to reach us, so I guess that the core could have exploded since then.
The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.- Psalm 19:1
Umm, it would be 25,000 years before we would know, the speed of light being what it is.
ReplyDeleteBackwoods Engineer, sure. But it's nice to know that the window is pretty short.
ReplyDeleteRats! I was looking forward to a good light show. :(
ReplyDeleteYeah, the thing about light is that you can't see it coming until it gets here.
ReplyDelete(I'm reminded of a once-upon-a-time coworker who subscribed to all manner of wacky newsletters, one of which kept him informed of the progress of an approaching "photon belt" which would, upon arrival, do something terrible. Crush the Earth, or something. I never did get an explanation for how the author of the newsletter was tracking something made of photons that wasn't here yet.)
If we want to know about threats approaching at the speed of light, we need FTL probes! Write your Congresscritter; we need a law to make FTL happen! (That's how Progress works, right? Congress passes a law, and things happen as ordered?)
I rest easy. Thanks, Borepatch.
ReplyDeleteAnd we don't have any General Products Hulls!
ReplyDeleteWe don't really need a General Products hull for a probe to check for a Core explosion; the probe just has to drop out of hyperspace often, snap a picture, and, as it approaches the Core, look for signs of a chain reaction.
ReplyDeleteIt should be able to detect a chain reaction before enough of the Core has gone boom for the radiation (at that distance) to destroy the probe. At that point, it turns around and reports back.
For that matter, the probe could return regardless after maybe 5K light-years to tell us that we had at least 5K years before any Core-related apocalypse.
Well that explains where all the damn Puppeteers went...
ReplyDeleteJust remember, when it all goes pear-shaped, You Scream, and You Leap, and that engines are perfectly serviceable directed energy weapons.
ReplyDeleteCaeli Inerrant.
ReplyDelete