A million years is a short time for a star (of the most common kinds), most stars that can be seen by eye are still “alive” because they are close enough to be bright enough.
Wouldn’t the light it emitted that we are seeing be like it’s corpse or ghost?
That one aged a bit like milk, as “previous presidential administration” currently feels like a time millennia in the past…
8 years ago was the same administration as it is now
Comment was about the term being used, not about the timeframe.
The previous administration only being about two years ago and it nonetheless feeling like a long gone by era from a different century actually further stresses my point…
Just think the light from that star was emitted before even COVID!
Well why didnt it warn us?
“Worf and Grilka”
That again doesn’t pack a similar punch, as Covid still feels like being only two years or so ago…
You can’t see millions of light years without a telescope. If you could the night sky would be white not black. Or more likely a weird shade of red.
Why you can’t see distant stars:
- The light fans out the further it travels, because the angles just drift further apart.
- The higher the distance, the higher is the chance of something else getting in the way. In particular, clouds of gas or dust can dim the star without blocking it completely.
I guess, the following isn’t technically relevant here, but:
- The space in the universe expands for unknown reasons. When light travels larger distances through this expanding space, its wavelength is stretched as well. This causes the light color to shift towards red, then infrared, then microwave radiation. We can’t see the latter two anymore, so they appear dark.
I assume, it’s not relevant here, because otherwise the stars would appear red. Although, I don’t know, if maybe Rayleigh Scattering counteracts that?
But yeah, there’s a similar paradox where this redshift actually becomes relevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olbers’_paradox
I assume, it’s not relevant here, because otherwise the stars would appear red.
Correct. The stars you can see with your eye are mostly all too close by to have a strong red shift.
The Andromeda galaxy can be seen with the naked eye. But as a fuzzy blur, though.
Every so often, someone wishes upon Andromeda and accidentally magnifies the effect of the wish by a factor of about 10^12. It’s a hazard.
Barely, and It’s one of the largest known galaxies in existence.
What do you mean barely? It is brighter than the Orion nebula and that one is pretty easy to see.
Andromeda has an apparent magnitude of 3.4 while the Orion nebula has an apparent magnitude of 4…
Lol, that scale is inverse. Venus is is -4
Right… I didn’t type out my main point, oops. I was going to add neither are considered easy to see.
And even harder to see from a city, right? From outside it is not.
Depends on the distance if the star. Why wish upon something millions of lightyears away? I could wish upon Proxima Centauri.
Aren’t the stars you are supposed to wish upon, shooting stars that die exactly the moment you make your wish, which is the whole point of the exercise?
You know, like one statistically improbable and as such lucky moment in time…
Just saying…
but shooting stars are just meteors, and not actual stars.
WORF: I am experiencing nIb’poH, the feeling I have done this before.
(TNG, “Cause and Effect”)
It’s OK I once saw a shooting star and wished that everyone could wish upon regular stars, so feel free to go nuts.
Well, I went outside wishing on the first star that crossed my view that wishing on any kind of star or non-star doesn’t work anymore.
And yes, I identify as an evil mirror guy wrongfully put in the wrong universe!
Council of Mages - Official Report on the Wish Catastrophe
(the document is scrawled in a childlike hand, or one that is unused to writing manually. The document is badly smeared with ink and is illegible in many places)
This will likely be the last report of the Council. Many of the members are dead or dying. Suspect anti-magick agents have conducted the Wish To End Wishing. Range of effect unknown but believed general at least to this dimension. Extra-dimensional scrying now impossible (illegible section) impossible to determine. Our palaces will crumble soon to dust, our people soon reduced to scrounging and hunting in the dirt like the mundane creatures of the wood. Most will starve or succumb to disease. Our libraries will decay, all our knowledge will pass into myth, and we will fall into ignorance. There is no repair. My family (This section is smeared and illegible. the smears look intentional)
(illegible) and I will continue our research, if food and shelter can be found, though with no magic whatsoever (illegible section) on survival. Recommend all do similar.
I would wish good luck, but the gesture is now empty. Farewell if you may.
End of Report
Also shooting stars are meteors, not stars
Thanks for the reminder, Mr. Spock.
Now, would you please return to the science station and find out the date of the next meteor shower?
We have a few urgent wishes to place!We’re still going through the Perseids right now, you should see a few if you are patient enough and the night skies are clear.
If meteors combusting in a planet’s atmosphere had the ability to grant requests to those who view them, I am sure a great many evils on a great many planets would have been solved a long time ago. In my experience, the only thing that can assist in solving a problem is a thorough understanding of its causes and the ingenuity sufficient to devise a solution.
In other words, you will get no assistance from a rock, unless of course that rock happens to be a scientist.
On rare occasion they are comets.
True! But the “brief flash of light” ones are objects burning up in our atmosphere. They can be comets or even artificial objects, but usually they are meteors.
Also comets are just asteroids with sufficiently eccentric orbits and a particularly impressive chemical makeup. (I.e. enough ice to make a pretty tail.) So I think if they enter earth’s atmosphere they’re still meteors?
Artificial objects? Hmm, so if next time I wish for a collision between starlink satellites I could trigger the unlimited wishes glitch?
Better hope kessler syndrome is worth all those wishes 🤣
Illogical. Wishing on a star requires a ‘shooting star’, which is in fact a meteor burning up while falling into Earth’s gravity well due to the Earth transiting through its solar neighborhood during its course around the Sun.
How do you feel about beats, battlestar Galactica, and bears?
I feel… like I’m missing something
Its a reference to the American version of The Office
That’ll be it then. I tried to get into it twice and failed. Sorry to have made you explain it!
When troubles melt like lemon drops, you’re high on all those synthehol shots. That’s why I’m escorting you to sickbay.
Ok I’ll just start wishing upon the sun then! for my first wish! I wish my eyes didn’t hurt so much
wish faster, at sunset and sunrise.
Granted. They hurt slightly less.
The farthest star that humans can see without a telescope is about 16000 light years away and most of them are much closer than that.
Some real Tyson energy there.
What if we only wish upon the stars in our local cluster
Spock looks like such a catty old queen here
