Topic: Most Distant Supernovae Found

[sam]

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/07/090708-most-distant-supernova.html

[Clive]

"currently 18 billion light years away from Earth".  That puts expansion into perspective! 

[Simon]

I don't think I'll ever get my head round the size, and distance of this stuff, and that we actually have equipment powerful enough to see something so far away. 

[sam]

wait till we (and in this case I do actually mean we since I'm writing some of the software) get the next generation radio telescopes online - we will be able to look even further back.... to a point just after the big bang.

[Clive]

Can't wait to see the results Sam!   

[Simon]

What about before it?

[sam]

argh someone was bound to ask... (insert inappropriate teenage joke about your mom :-) )

... we don't really know I'm an observer I normally only talk about what I can see, I can't see before the epoch of reionisation so I can't comment, what a get out. I'm really not sure what idea I believe, some theories have these mutli-universes - none are satisfactory. A point singularity with the necessary energy density to form the Universe from a "big bang" is the normal version... but still... hmm.

[Simon]

I can't see before the epoch of reionisation

Oh, that! 

[sam]

astronomers and their confusing terms... oh we do love them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reionization

the image shows when it happened: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Reion_diagram.jpg

[Simon]

It's all much clearer now. 

[Sandra]

I always think that its amazing that although the universe is infite, its still expanding so it will eventually be even bigger than infinte