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I'd love to see more details about this. How do we know that a supernova wiped them out if the light of that event hasn't reached us yet? Is the supernova itself closer to us and have we seen it, and scientists calculated that it will wipe out the Pillars?

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I updated my above comment, after cooling off enough to actually open Wikipedia. Afaiu we see the remnants of the supernova as well, but it was far from the Pillars, and the wave will take some time to travel there—hundreds to a thousand years still. Otoh the part where the wiping-away was hypothesized but disconfirmed with Hubble, seems to be at odds with this account, because it says we should be seeing the disturbance already. It's all rather confusing.

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