4 ms·
Betelgeuse, the only star that I know of within the range to produce a supernova dangerous to us, has scientists looking at it closely. Mostly because it's a cl
by zaarn 6y ago
Betelgeuse, the only star that I know of within the range to produce a supernova dangerous to us, has scientists looking at it closely. Mostly because it's a closeby giant and those are interesting.
I think most estimates range between 40'000 and 140'000 years until core hydrogen is exhausted. It's ejecta are unlikely to reach earth or cause harm (either radiation or otherwise). So while it lasts, you can enjoy reading a book under the light of a dying star at night for a few days.
Eta Carinae is another candidate but it's too far away and unlikely to outshine Venus significantly. It's also not due for some due. There is also the possibility it'll just collapse into a black hole with no fanfare or extra light emission, it'll just be gone one day.
Supernovae usually come from very bright stars, those are easily detectable and visible. From what I remember, there aren't any candidates even close to us that are about to expire minus Betelgeuse, which isn't aiming it's poles at us and won't do much harm.
I would like to add that in the even we could predict that a supernova is about to wipe us out, there isn't anything we could do. Any nearby object we could use as shelter, such as Venus, Mars, the Jupiter Moons etc would likely be just as affected if not more (Jupiter's magnetic field will likely make a Supernova hit more deadly IMO). It would be over within the span of a few days and nobody will survive. Just lean back and enjoy the show, tbh.
- Aperocky 6y agoCore hydrogen is already gone in Betelgeuse case. It's a matter of when it gets to Fe56 and exceed Chandrasakhar limit
- TaupeRanger 6y agoI wonder if there are any sci-fi books with a doomed planet along these lines. Pick up 10 years before the planet gets destroyed. People of the past lived with the futility of trying to escape, doing almost nothing, and now people are desperate and taking insane scientific risks to try to save the species.
- paul_f 6y agoNeal Stephenson's Seveneves is a great read kinda along these lines.
- abecedarius 6y agoSeconded. There's a trilogy starting with The Last Policeman with a similar scenario: kilometer-scale asteroid projected to hit in about a year. To a first approximation everyone just says "Well, fuck, guess we're going to die." Thinking about the ways that seemed unrealistic and how I thought it would go instead, Seveneves turned out a lot more like it (though with exciting-story elements injected, and also in Seveneves they're starting from maybe a decade ahead of us in space tech). (The Last Policeman is still interesting in other ways.) Egan's Diaspora is another good match, with an astrophysical cataclysm instead of a merely planetary one. It happens to a much more advanced future society, though.
- qubex 6y agoI loved Seveneves but I disagree that it provides an indication of how one would face this kind of emergency. For sure one would not venture into space if one fears an onslaught of harsh gamma-ray radiation. It’s an entirely different kind of disaster. (SPOILER: Admittedly, the underground and underwater subplots might be more applicable but... they’re side-shows at best.)
- hvis 6y agoThree Body Problem has this as one of the premises.
- jandrese 6y agoIf you're talking about a massive gamma burst sterilizing life on the surface of the planet there are some continuation of the planet options with a 10 year timescale. Ark submarines full of embryos that are mass produced by a world that somehow puts aside their differences and comes together for the singular goal of saving life. Restarting the carbon cycle would require a massive effort, but with planning and lots of hard work it might be possible. The post apocalyptic world would be a strange place full of dead plants and animals that take a long time to start decaying because all of the microbiota that normally cause decay were also killed off. It would be interesting to see how fast they would spread afterward. It would give humanity a small buffer before they start releasing gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere at least. It really depends on how well the oceans survive. If algae can come back reasonably quick the planet can be saved.
- dodobirdlord 6y agoI don’t think there would be much in the way of dead plants and animals lying around. In an oxygen atmosphere any organic material would ignite, and a sufficiently intense burst would melt anything on the surface of the crust that doesn’t burn.
- ivalm 6y agoI think there is also the issue that that level of gamma will mess up atmospheric chemistry. Something like N2+O2 -> dissociated N and O plasmas -> NO2 Which means the air might become not breathable.
- narag 6y agoIn Ring World there is a massive burst in the galaxy center and there is a race that, instead, puts its planets in formation and moves them to the edge of the galaxy.
- cgriswald 6y agoYears ago, and it might have stolen the story from somewhere else, there was a Twilight Zone/Outer Limits/Tales from the Darkside type show and in one episode space explorers are visiting the remains of a charred planet ~2,000 light years away. They learn the star that went supernovae and that it is the star the three wise men followed to Bethlehem.
- nobody9999 6y ago>Years ago, and it might have stolen the story from somewhere else, Yes they did. It was Arthur C. Clarke's "The Star"[0]. And it was "The Twilight Zone" (1980s version). While the TV episode was interesting, the short story itself is much better. I highly recommend it. The story was in the "The Nine Billion Names of God" collection[1]. The title story is also interesting in its religious focus. [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20080718084442/http://lucis.net/stuff/clarke/star_clarke.html https://web.archive.org/web/20080718084442/http://lucis.net/... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nine_Billion_Names_of_God_(collection) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nine_Billion_Names_of_God_...
- hirundo 6y agoSee the classic Larry Niven short story Inconstant Moon, collected in All the Myriad Ways.
- brandmeyer 6y agoIt was the plot of a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, and a pretty good one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inner_Light_%28Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inner_Light_%28Star_Trek:_...
- sliken 6y agoLarry Niven has a short inconstant moon where the main character looks up at the moon which brightens to 1000 times normal brightness, what that means dawns on him shortly later.
- 1_player 6y agoThere's Outer Wilds, a video game where you're 22 minutes away from your star going supernova. It's pretty good.
- sokoloff 6y agoI am irrationally frustrated that I won't live to experience this. I mean there are so many more important things to live for, but...
- echelon 6y ago> Jupiter's magnetic field will likely make a Supernova hit more deadly IMO Why is that?
- zaarn 6y agoI imagine that it could channel radiation rather than divert it. Or channel ejecta.
- ohiovr 6y agoWe could go underground like the Morlocks.