Exploding star can be seen from earth within 2 weeks!!

reply to post by lonewolf19792000


Yeah, pretty much. Total Planet Killer for sure, but seeing as how the star is so far away I don't think we would have to worry...I think that a gamma ray burst, in order to threaten Earth, would have to be within a 100 light years away, maybe closer, I kinda was talkin out my behind when I mentioned it earlier, sorry!

reply to post by habiff


I don't know the distance they have to be to be dangerous, if this one was close enough to harm us it will destroy our ozone layer and damage our atmosphere, several scientists think one hit earth around the ordivcian era and killed 70% of all life( and that was when nothing lived on land) between food chain collapse due to uv rays and an ice age by smog creation, thankfully it's very rare and has probaly happened only once or twice and I think this ones far enough

.
The scientists know the supernova is going to happen because they have seen the first light arriving to their eyes from an event 21 milion light yers or so away right?
So how do they exactly know the time period its going to be visible for?
Are they 100% sure its just a supernova?
Radio waves travel no faster than light waves?
So how can they be sure of anything in relation to this event?

Originally posted by tarifa37

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by Cryptonomicon

 

It is not a prediction of a supernova. The thread title should read "Exploding star can be seen from earth for 2 weeks".

The supernova occurred in a galaxy 21 million light years away. It took 21 million years for the the light from it to arrive at Earth a couple of days ago. The light will continue to arrive for a while. But, as the article points out, it's not really going to be noticeable.

edit on 8/27/2011 by Phage because: (no reason given)

The distance is absolutely mind boggling

21 million light years away. Well the distance that light travels in one year is 10 Trillion 10,000000000000 Kilometres en.wikipedia.org... so that has to be multiplied by 21,000,000 resulting in a huge number of Kilometres that I have no idea how to represent here.

Yes!!

Basically, if you were able to travel in a space vessel going at the speed of light (186,000 miles per second), it would take you 21 million years to reach this star.

WOW

reply to post by Phage

Got it - so we are already seeing the light from the explosion, and the light will continue to reach us for the next two weeks. Makes sense now.

Thanks for answering the question, but I find it funny how everyone assumes they are the only ones who are aware of light years, the speed of light, and how long it takes for light to reach us from distant cosmic objects, and feel the need to explain the concept even though it wasn't a factor in the question.

Originally posted by VreemdeVlieendeVoorwep

Originally posted by Cryptonomicon
How do they know it's going to explode so far ahead of time?

I mean, is the star swelling or collapsing or something? How can they be so sure that the indicators are that precise, that they can predict a super nova 2 weeks ahead of time?

I'm sure the answer is amazing.

Mate, read the article please.

It allready happenned, it just takes some time for us to see it..........

vvv

That's not a good explanation. If we cannot see it yet from the surface, then no telescope can see it, either on the surface or in space.

So, the question still remains: how the heck did they manage to see it before us?

reply to post by masterp


But it was discovered by a terrestrial observatory.

These images show Type Ia supernova PTF 11kly, the youngest ever detected -- over the past three nights. The left image taken on Aug. 22 shows the event before it exploded supernova, approximately one million times fainter than the human eye can detect. The center image taken on August 23 shows the supernova at about 10,000 times fainter than the human eye can detect. The right image taken on Aug. 24 shows that the event is six times brighter than the previous day. In two weeks time it should be visible with a good pair of binoculars. Credit: Peter Nugent/LBNL and Palomar Observatory

Link.

BTW, LBNL is Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a DOE national lab.

I wish London wasn't so permanently cloudy. I wish I had a telescope.

Even if you can't see much from this distance, just to know you are witnessing such an awesome event as a supernova is wonderful.