Good old Hubble
Still producing spectacular images.
Long may it continue.
The Hubble Space Telescope has captured a striking portrait of nebula PN M-29 – less prosaically dubbed the "Twin Jet Nebula", or "cosmic butterfly" if you're feeling particularly poetic. This bipolar nebula, which lies some 4,000 light years from Earth in the constellation Ophiuchus, has two stars at its centre. The larger …
"Since there is no universal "now" it possibly only makes sense to describe the age "as seen".
Ah... but what if we chose to visit this particular spot at a 'later date' with our new light speed drive but subsequently determine, 20 years later, that the observed activity, apparently 'Only 1,200 years ago', will result in a catastrophic SuperMegaNova 2,800 years from our now....
The 'Get out of Dodge' message arrives 20 years too late and scatters off the highly excited remaining atoms of our shiny light speed space ship and its carbonised inhabitants.
If it's an FTL drive then you've (probably) just invented time travel, and you can just fly back home to warn people, no need to send a message.
Apparently, whilst I accept I am out of my depth here, we can do nothing 'faster than light' which is why I mentioned the light speed space ship.
Perhaps they can equip it with a Sigourney Weaver. That might work.
@ Camilla - we can do nothing 'faster than light'
Well they physics is a bit wierd - doing things (with mass) at the speed of light takes lots of infinities and is therefore deemed impossible. But if you can avoid travelling *at* that speed then the numbers become sensible again on the other side. In fact keeping your speed down might be an issue!
Given that there are various quantum tunelling possibilities it might be possible (on a quantum level) to jump the light speed limit, but you would then have to "jump" back, in a controlled fashion. To all intents and purposes it is impossible for the forseeable future. But that's the thing about the forseeable future, it may be quite short.
…or, perhaps, you're simply barking…? The 1 dog year = 7 human years is a myth. Dogs age faster as puppies as their metabolism are faster, and slow down as they age and small dogs live a fair bit longer than larger breeds.
So, for example, between 3 and 12 months small and medium breeds (chihuahuas, Jack Russells, dachshunds, pugs, spaniels, etc.) age around 1.25 human years per month, dropping to around 1 year a month at age 2, 0.75y at 4, and 0.5 at 8. If he lives to 20, he's ageing at 0.4y per month.
Large breeds (Rotties, Great Danes, BMDs, Newfoundlands, GSDs, Labs, etc.) age 1m = 1y up to 12m, then 1m = 8m at 3-6yrs, 7.5m at 9-13yrs. Large breeds tend not to live much longer than that.
Cats age much faster; a 3-month-old kitten is about 4 human years old, and a 1-year-old cat is around 15. By the time your cat is 10, he's about 60 in human years, and at 15 he's 77.
In short, it's all to do with metabolism.
"Minor pedantry, but surely if it's 4000 light years away, they were created 5200 years ago."
The pretty patterns, as we see them, are 1200 years old. But the light took 4000 years to get here. So they are both 1200 years old and 5200 years old. Until we looked at them, they could have been in either state. Blame Schroedinger!
"This bipolar nebula, which lies some 4,000 light years from Earth--"
"The exposed remnant core of the moribund larger partner is what illuminates the "iridescent" gas lobes, which, based on measurements of their ongoing expansion, were created just 1,200 years ago."
Ooops - Bugger. An Anonymous Coward got there first. Pfffft. No courage in their convictions or should they really be getting some work done rather than commenting on El Reg. Is that sound behind you the boss about to whup you upside the head?
... No doubt Lester does this sort of thing to amuse himself.
It was neither a nova nor a supernova. This particular bipolar nebula (M2-9 not M-29 actually) is a planetary nebula, formed from the end stages of a red giant as it becomes a white dwarf. One way to get the bipolar structure is if the central object is a binary star, and the outflow from the red giant wind gets channeled into lobes. "Butterfly Nebula". Harumph. When I observed it for my thesis, we called it Minkowski's Mustache. (Minkowskl being the 'M' in the object's name).
The reason behind the lobes is the star has a magnetic field and the interaction with that and the ionised gasses expelled produces lobes. The companion star merely stabilises the systems rotation*. Stars without companions can spin 'erratically' and can produce what appear to be shells.
Google planetary nebulae and enjoy the pics...
*well it can help with the magnetic field generation.