MAR 24, 2008 - Explosion Halfway Across Universe is the true and astonishing story of what really happened last week, when the biggest bang since the Big Bang finally reached our home planet. The blast really happened some 7.5 billion years ago, actually. But it just got here because that's how long light takes to travel halfway across the Universe. The fact that it got here so big and so bright that it could be seen by the naked eye . . . well, that's what tells us it was the biggest bang since the Big Bang. Think of it: for longer than Earth has been a planet, the blast from a huge exploding star has been heading this way at lightspeed. It just got here, last week, and we were here to see it. I wasn't one of the lucky few looking in the right direction at the right time. Neither was Arthur C. Clarke, who died that day. Irony and synchronicity abide: the guy credited with first proposing a geosynchronously orbiting satellite, the guy who wrote The City and the Stars, left this world on the day when a NASA satellite (albeit not in geosynchronous orbit) caught the first glimpse of a panhistoric stellar wonder. You really know how to take your exit, Mr. Clarke!
