bookmark_borderBrain Cells vs Space Time Continuum Thingy

Guess which one won?

Okay, so I get that when we look at starlight, it is starlight that first left the star a long time ago. I get that. The star could be blown up into smithereens but we don’t know that yet because the light from it hasn’t gotten here yet. I get that, too. The following is from a LiveScience article about a “Giant ‘Blob’ Found in Outer Space“. It’s a cool article with puzzling questions with no answers. Yet.

A strange giant space “blob” spotted when the universe was relatively young has got astronomers puzzled. Using space and ground telescopes, astronomers looked back to when the universe was only 800 million years old and found something that was out of proportion and out of time.

(…)

Ouchi and Ellis said one possibility is that by chance, astronomers captured the moment a galaxy was forming in the early universe — something that never has been seen before.

As astronomers gaze deeper into space, they are looking farther back in time. What Ouchi found was from 12.9 billion years ago. Only three other objects have been seen that are from deeper in time and space.

Now, didn’t that just fry a few more brain cells? So, like, the further we are able to look into space–other universes and stuff–the further back into time we are seeing. But, wouldn’t we really be seeing the future? No, that’s not right. If my imaginary star blew up yesterday, I’d not know it until 300 yrs from now because it is 300 light years away. But by aiming a really strong light at it…Oh, Wait….I think I got it….We are looking back in time because what we are seeing happened 300 yrs ago. And the further into space we can look, the further away the light source, so the further back into time we go.

Ouch, there went another one.

I think I will write Fantasy novels and leave the SciFi to those who can grasp these concepts long enough to make them real in their manuscript.