With a Supernova This Close, is Any Where Safe?

O K , it happened 21,000,000 years ago.

www.physorg.com...

I guess we just happen to live in a good location .

I would suppose it's true. Everybody says, " Not in my backyard !"

reply to post by hdutton


Nice find. I do think that there is no safe place in the universe we are fragile and the universe is great beyond doubt.
However this supernova was so distant itself that it took 21M years just for the light of it to reach us. We certainly could be affected by a supernova or any of the myriad other threats that exist within and without our solar system yet the unimaginable size of space itself serves to hide us in its vastness.

reply to post by hdutton


I absolutely love how the article states how scientists were able to detect it "within hours" of the star exploding.

So... 21 million years, plus a few hours.

Nice catch!?


Cheers,
Strype

This is a first, more recent than estimates of other near incident discoveries, like G1.9.

One topic of interest to me, at least at one time, was to wonder what a safe distance is to be from a supernova explosion. Sort of right on cue, I was watching a Universe episode that echoed some of the findings I found poking around. Generally most believe 25 light years away (from an average Supernova) is safe, some went so far as to say a little as 20 light years away. But I believe the mention of Betelgeuse came up and the 25 light years away becomes the closest safe distance from what Betelgeuse might produce.

Anyway, if Betelgeuse should go in anyone's lifetime, it's safely around 640 light years away from us.

So something explodes 21 million light years away and it is documented by more than one observer, yet there are people out there that thinks a star can creep into our solar system unnoticed, or lurk nearby, or could be spotted on Google sky. Please people, review.

"I absolutely love how the article states how scientists were able to detect it "within hours" of the star exploding.
So... 21 million years, plus a few hours"

Come on dude what do u want them to do change the constant of C(Speed of light) so that it gets here faster?

A few hours for detection is pritty good, after all the need to sanitise there data before they spoon feed us monkeys there version of events.

We really have more to worry about all the nuclear power plants melting down on this planet than to worry about a supernova that we can't stop anyways!! IMO

Originally posted by Chrisfishenstein
We really have more to worry about all the nuclear power plants melting down on this planet than to worry about a supernova that we can't stop anyways!! IMO

I really did look through all the emodicons I have available, but could not find one which expressed my true feelings about the fear I have for the explosion of a near-by supernova.

I guess I should just take the rest of the week off and create one.

Any suggestions ????

I think we should be more worried about that black hole only 4,000 light years away

Originally posted by hdutton
I really did look through all the emodicons I have available, but could not find one which expressed my true feelings about the fear I have for the explosion of a near-by supernova.

I guess I should just take the rest of the week off and create one.

Any suggestions ????

A supernova isn't even on the top ten list of things to worry about that could destroy all life on Earth:

Top 10 Things That Could Wipe Out Life On Earth

The top three are:
3. Death By Black Hole
2. Gamma Ray Burst
1. Meteor

But Supernova didn't even make the top ten.

And you're far more likely to die crossing the street or in a traffic accident than in a meteor strike, or from insufficient exercise leading to obesity and heart attack and stroke.

At least NASA is trying to discover all the possible asteroid impactors (their goal is to find 90% of those over 1km). But cosmological events like Gamma ray bursters might catch us by surprise, because they can give off so much energy from so far away. There's not much we can do about them. You might survive in an underground base but if it kills all the plants you'll run out of food eventually.

Interestingly, we owe our very existence to supernovae. Without them, the heavier elements upon which we rely wouldn't be present on Earth.

So I'm thankful for supernovae and don't worry about them too much.