[Mefustae]

Considering that the event hit us within hours of the death of Arthur C. Clarke, there's been some movement towards hitherto naming the outburst; "the Clarke Event".

http://blogs.earthsky.org/larrysessions/space/032190/why-not-the-clarke-event/

Sounds good to me. Everyone, write to your local astronomer!

[FUBAR-BDHR]

I also think I've either seen or read somewhere that the explosions for these huge stars are theorized to be able to  travel faster then the speed of light.  Of course that could just be mixing beer and the science channel.

Just remembered the term.  Hypernova.  Off to google it.

[Nuke]

According to Wikipedia,

Astronomical observations indicate that the universe is 13.73 ± 0.12 billion years old and at least 93 billion light years across. The event that started the universe is called the Big Bang. At this point in time all matter and energy of the observable universe was concentrated in one point of infinite density. After the Big Bang the universe started to expand to its present form. Since special relativity states that matter cannot exceed the speed of light in a fixed space-time, it may seem paradoxical that two galaxies can be separated by 93 billion light years in 13 billion years; however, this separation is a natural consequence of general relativity. Stated simply, space can expand with no intrinsic limit on its rate; thus, two galaxies can separate more quickly than the speed of light if the space between them grows.

Also, it's entirely possible even discounting that fact above. If the two galaxies were going nearly opposite each other at the speed of light, they could be 9 billion light years away from each other. Speed of light is a confusing thing, though. It must not be an absolute maximum since you can measure it on earth, and I've never heard of any experiments having to take the universal direction of the experiments into account; I do not remember the entire explanation for why that is however.

that sorta proves that warp drive is possible. assuming you can make space grow

[Colonol Dekker]

According to Wikipedia,

Astronomical observations indicate that the universe is 13.73 ± 0.12 billion years old and at least 93 billion light years across. The event that started the universe is called the Big Bang. At this point in time all matter and energy of the observable universe was concentrated in one point of infinite density. After the Big Bang the universe started to expand to its present form. Since special relativity states that matter cannot exceed the speed of light in a fixed space-time, it may seem paradoxical that two galaxies can be separated by 93 billion light years in 13 billion years; however, this separation is a natural consequence of general relativity. Stated simply, space can expand with no intrinsic limit on its rate; thus, two galaxies can separate more quickly than the speed of light if the space between them grows.

Also, it's entirely possible even discounting that fact above. If the two galaxies were going nearly opposite each other at the speed of light, they could be 9 billion light years away from each other. Speed of light is a confusing thing, though. It must not be an absolute maximum since you can measure it on earth, and I've never heard of any experiments having to take the universal direction of the experiments into account; I do not remember the entire explanation for why that is however.

that sorta proves that warp drive is possible. assuming you can make space grow

Well it's good as done then

[WMCoolmon]

Interesting...so you destroy space in front of the ship, while creating it behind the ship, and technically the ship never moves...

[FUBAR-BDHR]

So Futurama got it right then.  You don't move the ship you move space around the ship.  It's all so simple now.   

[WMCoolmon]

I'm not surprised; I remember that at least one of the people working on Futurama had a PhD. So I wouldn't be surprised if the science was more advanced than some of the big-budget shows that are prone to SFX grandoiseness, ala Star Trek or BSG.