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Dual Supernovae Light Up June Nights
- saiya-jin 10y agoanytime I imagine those absolutely gigantic proportions of these very violent events, i feel tiny and completely irrelevant in grand scheme of universe. which is exactly how it is :)
- huuu 10y agoI feel the opposite: I also feel tiny but relevant because in this huge space we are (as far as we know it) the only form of life.
- epalmer 10y agoGosh I relate to your post and the one you are posting your reply to above. Some days relevant in the grand scheme, some days totally not.
- HerpDerpLerp 10y agoI just want a piece of fairy cake!
- hugh4 10y agoAnd that's just one universe. Just think how many more there might be...
- gnur 10y agoOn the other hand, on the gigantic proportions of the entire universe, even the largest star or blackhole is tiny in comparison. That makes me feel less insignificant because nothing is really significant on a cosmic scale.
- arethuza 10y agoFun fact: a supernova at the Earth-Sun distance would be (quite a bit) brighter than an H-bomb going off while pressed against your eye! https://what-if.xkcd.com/73/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/73/
- arethuza 10y agoAnyone else think of Look to Windward? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Look_to_Windward https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Look_to_Windward
- david-given 10y agoAccording to the Culture timeline (http://theculture.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline http://theculture.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline), the Twin Novae battle occurred in 1367, and the light reached (er, will reach) Masaq' in 2170. (The Culture found Earth in 1977, shook their heads sadly, and then went away again.) So if we're seeing the light now, that means that we're 649 light years from Portisia and Junce, which suggests that Arm One-Six is what we would call the Orion Arm (the one on which our sun is located). Which means that we were right in the middle of the Culture-Idiran war back in the 14th century. Lucky us!
- adekok 10y agoFYI about Supernovas: https://what-if.xkcd.com/73/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/73/ --- Which of the following would be brighter, in terms of the amount of energy delivered to your retina: 1) A supernova, seen from as far away as the Sun is from the Earth, or 2) The detonation of a hydrogen bomb pressed against your eyeball? A: Applying the physicist rule of thumb suggests that the supernova is brighter. And indeed, it is ... by nine orders of magnitude. --- There are some suggestions that a close supernova would emit enough neutrinos to affect life on Earth. I worked on the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory, for my M.Sc. Roughly, about 10^22 neutrinos go through an average building in a day, and maybe one interacts with the building.
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- Santosh83 10y agoMaybe I'm mistaken, but wasn't the suggestion that a close enough supernova would pose a threat to life on Earth because of gamma radiation and not neutrinos?
- Guillaume86 10y agoThe "fun" part is that neutrinos barely interact at all with other matter so the idea of something emitting so much of them than they pose a threat to life is impressive in itself, but sure, it would be the least of our worries if a supernova occured close to earth.
- ChuckMcM 10y agoYes, it isn't the neutrinos you have to worry about, its the mass of protons traveling at relativistic speed that nail you.
- Retric 10y agoHiding on the other side of a planet can block most forms of radiation except neutrinos. So, it's not completely irrelevant.
- ChuckMcM 10y agoIt would be so depressing if the peak of alien weaponry is a device that causes a sun to nova, and we are watching an interstellar version of WW III that happened a million years ago as two otherwise intelligent species decided to decimate each other.