Let There Be Light

[Bigjohn69]

Astronomers have detected a signal from the first stars as they appeared and illuminated the universe, in observations that have been hailed as “revolutionary”.

The faint radio signals suggest the universe was lifted out of total darkness 180m years after the big bang in a momentous transition known as the cosmic dawn.


https://www.theguardian.com/science/201 ... e-universe

Now we know when the words let there be light took place

[Jlabute]

Good article.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/02/signal-of-the-universes-first-stars-hints-at-odd-form-of-dark-matter/

Somewhat of a co-article commentary suggesting more data would be necessary to raise the confidence level. Can't imagine how much of a difference there can be between extremely probable, and fully confident.

[JagXKR]

I am very much anticipating this merger. When Larry Molnar, and team, made this prediction last year I was a bit skeptical but after reading their paper I was excited. I agree with their hypothesis and will be ready for the day, if I'm still around.

http://earthsky.org/space/star-predicte ... de-in-2022

[Jlabute]

That’ll be exciting. Get your telescope ready. I suppose it already has Nova’d, you just have to get closer to see it ;-) it will be as bright as Polaris?

“The system is predicted to result in a merger in 2022.2±0.6, producing a luminous red nova reaching an apparent magnitude 2. The luminous red nova should remain visible to the naked eye for roughly a month.”

[JagXKR]

It will be closest to the star Rukh in Cygnus. That star is a similar magnitude to the predicted magnitude of the nova. However the nova will be much more red. The human eye sees the blue light differently than red and if both stars were exactly the same brightness the human eye would see the nova as slightly dimmer. The good news is if the nova reaches +2 magnitude it will be slightly brighter than Rukh and very easily seen. Even in the city. Rukh is the right hand star of the cross.