The Real Death Star

Originally posted by thebtheb
I would like to point out that dinosaurs were here for 180 million years. That's a hell of a long time to reign the earth without being interrupted or destroyed. Stuff happens in the universe but I see no reason to sit around ruminating about it all constantly.

I concur that there have been many long lived species on our planet.

There have also been many short lived ones.

And you are correct. "Stuff" happens in our universe. I, for one, and some other people take an interest in that "stuff". We enjoy talking about it, observing it, and even comparing notes. Some who are interested in it ask questions. Some of us have answers to those questions.

Some will have no interest in it, nor see any reason to talk about it as you said, and as you indicated how you feel.

That begs the question however: if that is how you feel, why bother posting in the thread?

reply to post by Cryptonomicon


Not sure about that. The little things in nature are surprisingly hardy. Also gamma radiation isn't the same as neutron radiation. It typically doesn't alter the isotopes of most matter, so when the gamma source is gone it's fairly safe to go back into previously irradiated areas. (It doesn't make things "hot" in the radioactive sense.) With air and ocean currents, most biota that survived on the opposite side would make a pretty good rush to repopulate. Algae and stuff like bacteria and fungi would be in full bloom consuming nutrients from all the dead things. Existing air and ocean currents would work fairly well to spread them back out again. I'd say it'd be about a year before the things nearest the center of the hit would start to be decomposed by something, unless there's some weird weather pattern isolating it.

For any humans and higher organisms it would still be pretty hard though. The ozone layer taking a significant hit means it might be decades if not centuries to recover. You'd pretty much have to stay out of the sun and figure some method to limit UV going to things like plants grown for food. Acid rain and the nitrogen related polution in the first couple years would be pretty bad too. Whether humans would make it probably depends on how technically advanced those that survived are. (Ability to adapt and do things like agriculture in enclosed spaces not exposed to direct sun.)

OR... A bus or plane may crash through your window and kill you, RIGHT NOW!

Better sit around and worry about it.

S&F. I think the most likely threat of extinction from space would be a cometary impact. When comet Hale Bopp visited us years back, it was estimated that the nucleus was about 23 miles across. A comet that size on a hyperbolic orbit striking us would pretty much sterilize the planet. And there are millions of them in the Oort cloud. Hyakatake was another big one that was only discovered a few weeks before passing us. I remember going outside and seeing it stretched across the sky and getting a very disturbing feeling, that it IS possible that a big comet can sneak up on us. Especially if one comes in from the sunward side of the planet. The Tunguska object and the object that struck Russia a few months ago came from a sunward direction, they were not detected. David Levy was quoted as saying that the most likely warning we will get of an impact is when the ground starts shaking. The universe is not a tranquil place after all.

Yes its a very magical universe we live in, things are blowing up every minute, of every single day, somewhere out there in the ocean of stars. Informative thread.

reply to post by eriktheawful

How soon? Could be 100 years from now. Or it could be tomorrow. That's the problem, as there is no way to know exactly for sure.

Assume it happened tomorrow, wouldn't it then take 8000 years to reach Earth?

Sorry if this has already been explained. To many pages to read through..

Like I said a few pages back, unusual bursts of neutrinos have been detected shortly before a supernova has been seen visually. It's uncertain as to whether the neutrinos actually travel a little faster than the rest of the EMR which includes the visible light, or if the neutrino burst is released shortly before the explosion. We have constructed a number of such neutrino detectors EG Project Icecube (Antarctica) and Super Kamiokande (Japan) as well as some smaller ones so chances are we'd know an indefinitely short time prior to seeing the event, that it had happened.

Enough warning to take any precautions? probably not even enough for the guys watching the monitors let alone the global population at large. The detectors give them a chance to have telescopes aimed in the right direction to witness, in great detail, one of these spectacular events and collect valuable data.

This is very much like worrying about the sky falling.

Originally posted by VeniVidi
reply to post by eriktheawful

 

How soon? Could be 100 years from now. Or it could be tomorrow. That's the problem, as there is no way to know exactly for sure.

Assume it happened tomorrow, wouldn't it then take 8000 years to reach Earth?

Sorry if this has already been explained. To many pages to read through..

edit on 6/9/2013 by VeniVidi because: (no reason given)

'Tis okay. I've explained it several times already so I could almost just copy and paste the answer.

The answer is: WR 104 has already gone hypernova, most likely sometime between 7,900 and 8,000 years ago.

The light of that even would take 8000 years to reach us (and the gamma rays if it's poles were pointed at us).

So when we look at WR 104, we are seeing light from 8000 years ago, and right now that light is saying that it's ready to die within the next 100 years or less.

If you had a special machine that could teleport you instantly to where WR 104 is, when you get there, you'd find that it's already a collapsar and has been for almost 8,000 years, because the hypernova already happened.

If, while you were there and survived being close to a collapsar, and you has a super powerful telescope that would let you see Earth as good as Google Maps shows, you would see the Earth as it appeared 8,000 years ago.

If you've ever watched the original Star Trek series on TV, the episode in the first season called "The Squire Of Gothos" they show how this works.

The crew finds themselves captive of a all powerful being called Trelane, who had been observing Earth using optical telescopes. He presents himself and where he lives with 18th century dress and a castle from the same period, because he forgot that he was looking at Earth in it's past because of the limitations of the speed of light.

Originally posted by eriktheawful

Originally posted by thebtheb
I would like to point out that dinosaurs were here for 180 million years. That's a hell of a long time to reign the earth without being interrupted or destroyed. Stuff happens in the universe but I see no reason to sit around ruminating about it all constantly.

I concur that there have been many long lived species on our planet.

There have also been many short lived ones.

And you are correct. "Stuff" happens in our universe. I, for one, and some other people take an interest in that "stuff". We enjoy talking about it, observing it, and even comparing notes. Some who are interested in it ask questions. Some of us have answers to those questions.

Some will have no interest in it, nor see any reason to talk about it as you said, and as you indicated how you feel.

That begs the question however: if that is how you feel, why bother posting in the thread?

Because it scares some people - so my two cents go in for them to consider.

Originally posted by VeniVidi
reply to post by eriktheawful

 

How soon? Could be 100 years from now. Or it could be tomorrow. That's the problem, as there is no way to know exactly for sure.

Assume it happened tomorrow, wouldn't it then take 8000 years to reach Earth?

Sorry if this has already been explained. To many pages to read through..

edit on 6/9/2013 by VeniVidi because: (no reason given)

If it did actually happen 8,000 years ago we wouldn't know it (as in observe it) until now.

Speed of Gamma particles

reply to post by thebtheb


The universe is a vibrant, dynamic place where all sorts of catastrophes (from our perspective) can and do occur. Our world and everything in & on it could be erased in the blink of an eye and there's nothing we could do to prevent it happening. The net effect of such an event on the rest of the universe is zero.

Is it worth worrying about? NO (all you'll achieve is a possible peptic ulcer or worse)

Originally posted by thebtheb

Originally posted by eriktheawful

Originally posted by thebtheb
I would like to point out that dinosaurs were here for 180 million years. That's a hell of a long time to reign the earth without being interrupted or destroyed. Stuff happens in the universe but I see no reason to sit around ruminating about it all constantly.

I concur that there have been many long lived species on our planet.

There have also been many short lived ones.

And you are correct. "Stuff" happens in our universe. I, for one, and some other people take an interest in that "stuff". We enjoy talking about it, observing it, and even comparing notes. Some who are interested in it ask questions. Some of us have answers to those questions.

Some will have no interest in it, nor see any reason to talk about it as you said, and as you indicated how you feel.

That begs the question however: if that is how you feel, why bother posting in the thread?

Because it scares some people - so my two cents go in for them to consider.

You are right. Subjects like this can scare some people.......

Unless they actually read the OP I made all the way through. Where they would see that, while an interesting subject, the latest studies show that this will not be happening to us any time soon, since the subject of the thread, WR 104, turns out to not be pointing at us.

So for anyone that might be worried, go back and reread the OP. This is more of a "What If" scenario. An interesting subject for some.

But no one should be worried about it. Plenty of other mundane things here on Earth they should worry about (like stepping out in front of a moving bus because they are too busy texting on their iPhone.....)

I find it interesting to think about the possibility that a gamma ray burst event already happened and is heading our way. How intense it is we will not know until we see it but when we see it, we also get hit by it. This is similar to standing in a road to see if a bus is going to hit you and the buses are traveling super fast. So fast that we currently can't see them until they hit us. We need something faster than light to give us an early warning. Otherwise we better hope for luck that we are not on the wrong side of the planet when the radiation hits and that the radiation doesn't last that long.

I suggested someone invent a quantum entanglement device and put it in deep space because if we had such a device, it would be faster than light in terms of being able to observe particles which would allow faster than light communication. If we had such a device, you could instantly communicate with robots or people on Mars. If Mars got hit first and they attempted to send a warning, it wouldn't help anyone on the planet facing the gamma rays because the transmission from Mars wouldn't reach us faster than the gamma rays did with existing technology.

Originally posted by eriktheawful
Hope some found this interesting.

Yeah. Really 'interesting'...

reply to post by orionthehunter


An interesting proposal.

However I can see a couple of problems with the idea.

1) We would need to place the devices in deep space as you said. However, for it to be effective, we would need it to be literally light years into deep space. Our current technology that we have such a trip would take generations to get there.

2) I don't know if we have such a device at this time. Or at least one that would work to give us the information we need.

Still, I think it's a great idea, if nothing else than to use it to communicate faster for deep space.

Originally posted by eriktheawful

Originally posted by VeniVidi
reply to post by eriktheawful

 

How soon? Could be 100 years from now. Or it could be tomorrow. That's the problem, as there is no way to know exactly for sure.

Assume it happened tomorrow, wouldn't it then take 8000 years to reach Earth?

Sorry if this has already been explained. To many pages to read through..

edit on 6/9/2013 by VeniVidi because: (no reason given)

'Tis okay. I've explained it several times already so I could almost just copy and paste the answer.

The answer is: WR 104 has already gone hypernova, most likely sometime between 7,900 and 8,000 years ago.

The light of that even would take 8000 years to reach us (and the gamma rays if it's poles were pointed at us).

So when we look at WR 104, we are seeing light from 8000 years ago, and right now that light is saying that it's ready to die within the next 100 years or less.

If you had a special machine that could teleport you instantly to where WR 104 is, when you get there, you'd find that it's already a collapsar and has been for almost 8,000 years, because the hypernova already happened.

If, while you were there and survived being close to a collapsar, and you has a super powerful telescope that would let you see Earth as good as Google Maps shows, you would see the Earth as it appeared 8,000 years ago.

If you've ever watched the original Star Trek series on TV, the episode in the first season called "The Squire Of Gothos" they show how this works.

The crew finds themselves captive of a all powerful being called Trelane, who had been observing Earth using optical telescopes. He presents himself and where he lives with 18th century dress and a castle from the same period, because he forgot that he was looking at Earth in it's past because of the limitations of the speed of light.

This is more the numbers i was expecting to hear and why I found the 1-100 years confusing.

When will WR 104 explode? The WC spectrum Wolf-Rayet component of the binary should explode sometime within the next few hundred thousand years.

www.physics.usyd.edu.au...

reply to post by eriktheawful


This is slightly tangential to this topic, but on some astronomy show I saw, there is some star that is supposed to pass nearby or through our solar system -- and I forget now what the time frame is, but likely a million or more years (perhaps even 10 million. The reason for passing by so closely is that this star and sol each have their own, skewed orbits within the Milky Way and right now Sol and this star are approaching one another.

It is hypothesized that during this fly by that this other star will disturb the orbits of various comets and asteroids in the Khelber belt and Ort cloud, thereby sending many of such bodies into the inner solar system, i.e. towards earth, amongst other solar bodies. In a way, this is the closest thing to a Niribu that has been positively identified. It's effects won't be as bad as a full frontal from a GRB, but the odds are much better for this to directly affect earth than any of the super/hyper-nova candidate stars in our celestial neighborhood.

One big fail concerning this thread: astronomers and astrophysicists still don't know what actually causes Gamma rays bursts, that explanation about Wolf-Rayet stars is still just an hypothesis.

reply to post by eriktheawful


how foolish do i feel i meant after as i facepalm myself

the only excuse i have is a bit of sun stroke

i must reread my reply before posting my thinks

and i thought Betelgeuse was blue and i cant blame that one on sun stroke lol

S&F

very fantastic prologue into your information , thanks for sharing this information and transforming it into something even a sience dummy like me can read

TheGreazel