WR104 deathstar question?

A light-year is the distance that light travels in one year, and nothing in the universe travels faster than light. Thus, if something happened to an object 8000 light-years away from Earth, there would be no way for us, on Earth, to know it until 8000 years later. So, for example, the light that reaches us tonight from that star was actually emitted 8000 years ago. So 8000 years ago, the star was there and emitting light. If the star stopped emitting light today, the light it had already emitted would continue to reach us for 8000 more years and we wouldn't know that it's current condition had changed.