Alt text:
They're a little cagey about exactly where the crossover point lies relative to the likelihood of devastating effects on the planet.
this post was submitted on 08 Jan 2024
631 points (99.1% liked)
xkcd
8843 readers
283 users here now
A community for a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Pretty sure the curve should turn up on the right side at some point.
Nah, happiness should asymptotically approach 0 happiness as distance increases, due to decreased brightness. Tho, I guess there could be a discontinuity at the crossover point of where we can no longer observe it and the happiness we can extract from understanding that there are those so far away we can never see them?
There's something to be said for very early supernovae. I'm sure they'd all be giddy for something beyond 13 billion light-years (or whatever that works out to in red shift).
At some distance, we can no longer see the stars or even the galaxy. A supernova will allow us to see in really distant past, maybe at the first generation with some really good lensing.
Think ereandel but older
If we somehow discovered a supernova (or anything, really) beyond the observable universe, I believe the astronomers would be very very happy.