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Fascinating. It will be wondrous to see if it occurs. It also reminds me of a premise in one of my favorite science fiction novels, Diaspora by Greg Egan. In t
by jcrites 10y ago
Fascinating. It will be wondrous to see if it occurs.
It also reminds me of a premise in one of my favorite science fiction novels, Diaspora by Greg Egan. In the story, the characters are monitoring the orbit of a binary star system. The orbit is decaying and a collision is expected at some point. However, soon the characters realize that the orbit is decaying far faster than expected. Extrapolating, and discovering new properties of stellar physics, the characters realize that the stars are mysteriously losing angular momentum, which will lead to them spiraling downward into a prompt collision that will produce supernova-scale energies. The binary star is in Earth's neighborhood, so this will put all life on the planet at risk. It will be brighter than the sun in daylight.
There's a great deal more to the plot than that (I don't want to spoil it) -- that's just the event that kicks things off. It's a great book and I'd highly encourage all sci-fi fans to read it. Hopefully nothing like this happens in real life, and we are confident and correct about the amount of energy that will be released :-)
While thinking about these topics, it is difficult not to ponder the frailty of life, and the astonishing vastness and expanse of the cosmos. How easy it would be for a star to snuff out all life on a world.
- david-given 10y agoSeconded --- it's a great book. Egan has an amazing talent for off-handedly mentioning and then casting aside multiple mind-expanding ideas per chapter that other authors would expand into a complete novel. Non-spoiler: I believe this book features the biggest sculpture in fiction. (Currently reading _Incandescence_.)
- pavel_lishin 10y agoIt's been awhile since I've read it; I'm going to try and ask this question in a spoiler-free way: are you talking about the thing they end up 'chasing' through the 4-6-4-6 (or arguably 3-5-3-5, etc)?
- netcraft 10y agothats it. Another vote for it being a great book - lots of amazing ideas.
- perseusprime11 10y agoCan anyone recommend a good telescope that wont break my bank? I would love to get into watching celestial events. Any recommendations?
- Achshar 10y agoIf a "nearby" supernova is happening, I don't think looking at it through a telescope is a good idea. Don't quote me on it though.
- schoen 10y agoThat doesn't feel right to me (though it all depends on how nearby is nearby). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SN_1987A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SN_1987A "Its brightness peaked in May with an apparent magnitude of about 3" (a few million times fainter than the full Moon)
- kordless 10y agoThat nova was in another galaxy, albeit a close one. The one we're talking about here is about 1-2K light years away.
- schoen 10y agoGreat point, thanks! Wikipedia says KIC 9832227 is "almost 1800 light years away" while SN 1987a is "167885 ly" from us. There should be an inverse square relationship for the intensity of light reaching us by our distance from the object, so light from this nova should be You have: (167885 ly / 1800 ly)^2 You want: Definition: 8699.1893 times brighter than that from SN 1987a due to proximity (which would still be much dimmer than the full Moon). However, the expected nova is also far dimmer to begin with: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminous_red_nova#Characteristics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminous_red_nova#Characterist... "The luminosity of the explosion occurring in luminous red novae is between that of a supernova (which is brighter) and a nova (dimmer)." So I'm still going to say "safe to observe with a telescope".
- DrScump 10y agoFascinating. It will be wondrous to see if it occurs. It's 1800 light-years away. It already happened a long time ago. Unless it didn't. mysteriously losing angular momentum Did it discuss a scenario how that would be possible (lack of conservation of total angular momentum)?