In response to OneFishDown
If a star no longer exists. then neither do the planets that once were near it. Any surviving debris that could be on its way to earth could be devastating. Id rather know about a meteor many decades before it hits, wouldnt you?
In response to RaeKwon
Universal law wont evolve. In a billion year's up wont be down and in wont be out.
-DogMan
In response to Metallica
Metallica wrote:
Do you even know what vulgarity is? Because I didn't use any of it.

Do you know what the forum rules are? Cause you obviously don't obey them.

RaeKwon
In response to Dog Man
True, but the Universe is only the 3rd dimension..

There are other planes of Existance that We cannot even comprehend that exist and Up could very well be down, Solids could be Liquids, and logic could be irrational.
The scientists are studying stars, that are so far of way, the light we are getting from that star might be 500 billion years old, and that star might not even exist today, were just still getting light from it. It makes perfect sense when you think about it.

It depends how far the star is. The speed of light, I beleive, is the fastest speed known to humans.
In response to RaeKwon
Why study something that doesn't exist no more?

Why study dinosaurs?
What the hell is that supposed to mean? Scientists realize that the stars might not be there depending on how far away they are.
In response to Dareb
Do you have any clue what your talking about?
In response to Geo
Why respond to this thread anymore?
RaeKwon wrote:
I had a dream, and well, I can prove scientists to be alot of idiots right now.

Okay, you know how light takes sometime to get to your eyes? For instance, thunder, if its a long ways away you wont see it right away but now think of this.

The scientists are studying stars, that are so far of way, the light we are getting from that star might be 500 billion years old, and that star might not even exist today, were just still getting light from it. It makes perfect sense when you think about it.

Theories currently in vogue (as a Creationist I don't agree with them, but let's not go there) tend to place the age of the universe at about 15 billion years or so. Astronomers have lately been revising upward more and more as they keep finding they can image stellar objects that are estimated to be farther and farther away. At any rate, there are no such objects estimated at half a trillion years.

On the purpose of studying these: We're really only beginning to understand physics at a low level, and even many established theories are little more than models and may well not be correct--they might just be describing special or common conditions.

If you read news stories on astronmy, you'll often find that in them scientists infer from telescopic data new theories about matter, and about physics at those deep levels. It might surprise you to learn that one such recent theory suggests space may be--contrary to the dictates of special relativity--flat and Euclidean after all. Black holes are especially interesting to astronomers because they reveal complex questions (and sometimes possible answers) about the nature of gravity.

Basically, astronomy gives us two things: 1) A knowledge of the universe around us, with a rough idea of what to expect out there, and 2) better physical models which can suggest further experiments in other disciplines, or proof negative of some theories. If we didn't study far-off objects, there'd be a lot less information to work with when trying to determine, for example, whether any Earth-like planets may be nearby. The need for stronger telescopes has driven technology forward, and has allowed very minute pieces of data to be analyzed for such information as whether a star has a wobble indicative of a circling gas giant planet.

And whether the objects scientists see still exist or not, or even if they're studying something that's only visible as a remnant like a nebula from a supernova, we learn valuable information about what they once were, and what other objects like them that exist today might be like.

Lummox JR
In response to RaeKwon
Think of the light as a fossil and a star as a dinosaur, the dinosaur isn't there, but it's bone(Or whatever is left of it) is there, and from that we can learn tons of things about it(The differ depending on the sample); Age, diet, weight, height, diseases, and etc.... So if we could learn all this from a fossil, then we could probably learn a lot from the after-image of a depleted star.


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