http://www.wral.com/amateur-spots-new-supernova-and-this-weekend-you-can-too/16703252/

From the article:

By Tony Rice

"A "new" supernova has been discovered by an amateur astronomer. The discovery came as Patrick Wiggins compared images of the galaxy taken from his telescope near Salt Lake City, Utah on May 12 with those taken early May 14. The discovery has been confirmed by additional observations worldwide.

Supernovae mark the end of a star's life with a tremendous explosion, the result of runaway internal nuclear reactions. Based on analysis of the light emitted, Wiggins' discovery was determined to be a Type-IIP supernova which occurs in stars ten or more times larger than our own. Light from this supernova took 22 million years to reach Earth.

While supernovae are rare in our own galaxy – occurring about once per century – this is the tenth one discovered in the last 100 years in NGC 6946, also known as the Fireworks Galaxy."
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The comment that it took the light from this explosion 22 million years to get here caught my interest. That means the explosion took place 22 million years ago.

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Todd

"The comment that it took the light from this explosion 22 million years to get here caught my interest. That means the explosion took place 22 million years ago."

Not necessarily. The speed of light is not a constant. Under certain conditions, light speed can actually change.

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Nigel Holland

It's amazing how astrophysicists don't know that.

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Todd

Wrong thread.

One thing that is rarely mentioned by astrophysicists is the expansion of the universe from the moment of creation (or what they would refer to as the "bang").

The speed of light is supposed to be a universal constant. However, that "speed" is distance divided by time (i.e., per second 299,792,458 meters/second or 186,000 miles/second).

Even if that speed is a constant, it is interesting to note that the size of the universe has NOT been constant. Physicists believe that all of the matter in the universe was once in one confined minuscule space -- but that the sudden and explosive "bang" created a sudden and explosive expansion to the universe that continues to this day.

In other words, the size of the universe went from nearly nothing to BANG a size that has increased ever since.

Why would this matter?

The initial "size" of the universe was small...and light was able to spread across the known universe in such a reduced state at a rate that would be constant yet (given the smaller size) was consistent with spreading across the entire known universe very quickly. Moreover, the "speed" of light had to be greater than the "escape velocity" of light despite all known matter.

A "black hole" is a collapsed star that was so dense with gravity so strong that even light cannot escape once it has passed across the event horizon. Yet, light HAD to have escaped when that "bang" of creation happened. In other words, the speed of light had to be greater than the accumulated mass of the entire known universe in those initial moments of creation. In other words, light traveled faster AND it happened across a universe that wasn't nearly as expansive as it is today.

I believe that these two things greatly effect the "time" and "distance" measurements of the universe.

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Christopher

Of course they know it, but they have a preconceived notion that the universe is billions of years old. This idea, along with the idea that men evolved from lower animals such as fish and amphibians, has been in pagan philosphies for thousands of years; philosophers such as Anaximander believed that men evolved from fish.

They also have serious problems with the Big Bang theory, such as the horizon problem

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Nigel Holland

Chris-

Are you saying the supernova truly is 22 light years away, but that the light only really took <10,000 years to get here?

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Todd

Let God be true and every man a liar.

From everything I have read on the creation account, God created the universe "in-motion" as it were. Think about it. If God created the heavens and the earth, made the earth first, and then the sun, he also had to set the orbit of the earth and all the planets. He CREATED the orbits. He didn't wait for the planets to fall into their current pattern. He put them there and set them in motion. He created this star to go one way, and another star to go another. One galaxy to move this direction. One galaxy to move another. God also had to create the oceans pre-oxygenated for the fish. He had to create our atmosphere with it's temperature gradients and layers, with the right amount of oxygen and carbon dioxide to support plants and animals.

He created the earth with a lithosphere and a mantle and a core.

He didn't throw a bunch of raw ingredients together and then let everything settle. He created everything in a working state.

Knowing and understand this, it makes it entirely possible that God created a supernova, and the stream of light which had an order to it--the end of the light stream already at earth showed a star. The middle of the stream showed the supernova. The end of the stream is what is currently going on, which we won't ever see.

That's the old "God created the universe with an appearance of age but not actual age" argument, whic I cannot buy on moral grounds.

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Todd

Why not? God created everything for His own pleasure, not yours. He could do whatever He wanted.

No matter how far you take it back, no matter what scientific origin account you subscribe to, you have to grapple with the fact that God created "something" in motion. You can't reduce it down far enough to escape it.