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Old November 3rd, 2012 #1
Soldatul Vostru
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Cool Earth 'to get second sun' as supernova turns night into day




The Earth could soon have a second sun, at least for a week or two.

The cosmic phenomenon will happen when one of the brightest stars in the night sky explodes into a supernova.

And, according to a report yesterday, the most stunning light show in the planet’s history could happen as soon as this year.

Earth will undoubtedly have a front row seat when the dying red supergiant star Betelgeuse finally blows itself into oblivion.

The explosion will be so bright that even though the star in the Orion constellation is 640 light-years away, it will still turn night into day and appear like there are two suns in the sky for a few weeks.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...#ixzz2BBWVYg54
 
Old November 3rd, 2012 #2
john2020
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Just think about the power of the explosion, that at 600 light years it rivals the sun, imagine what an intelligent species of beings in a nearby solar system would see.

I sometimes think about a civilisation on a planet around a dying red superstar, unable to escape their faith, just before their demise, what light spectacle they would get!!, it sends chills down my spine to think of something so powerful as a supernova.
 
Old November 3rd, 2012 #3
M.N. Dalvez
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AWESOME! I can't wait, it'll be the greatest show of any of our lifetimes.

Wait a minute... any time between 2012 and the next million years? I can't wait that long!
 
Old November 3rd, 2012 #4
Soldatul Vostru
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Quote:
Originally Posted by M.N. Dalvez View Post
AWESOME! I can't wait, it'll be the greatest show of any of our lifetimes.

Wait a minute... any time between 2012 and the next million years? I can't wait that long!
If it happens before the end of 2012, depending on when it starts, there's a good chance that I'll be driving about 2k miles to my destination in only daylight.
 
Old November 3rd, 2012 #5
Soldatul Vostru
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Quote:
Originally Posted by john2020 View Post
Just think about the power of the explosion, that at 600 light years it rivals the sun
640 light-years not 600. 40 light-years is no small distance.
 
Old November 3rd, 2012 #6
Zenos
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If we see the explosion now, that means it happened 640 years ago.
 
Old November 3rd, 2012 #7
john2020
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Soldatul Vostru View Post
640 light-years not 600. 40 light-years is no small distance.
The exact distance is not known, 400-800 is possible.

And yes, even 1 light year is an unimaginable vast distance, but in relative terms 40 ly are small compared to 600.
 
Old November 3rd, 2012 #8
DeShawn S. Williams
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Actually, the chances of this happening in 2012 or anytime in the near future are pretty small: http://earthsky.org/brightest-stars/...xplode-someday

And even if Betelgeuse exploded this year, as others have pointed out, it would still take several hundred years for the radiation from that explosion to reach earth. Though I gotta say, it's exciting to thinking about!

PEACE
 
Old November 4th, 2012 #9
Hugo Böse
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Quote:
Brad Carter, Senior Lecturer of Physics at the University of Southern Queensland in Australia, claimed yesterday that the galactic blast could happen before 2012 – or any time over the next million years.
Beh, what a letdown, I was about to go get some new sunglasses.

I´ve been wondering how scientists come up with their theories on the life spans and estimated sizes of suns, some of their claims seem a bit far out.

What makes me question scientists´ theories regarding the life spans of suns is that the galaxy contains an estimated 200 billion stars but the last supernova in our Galaxy was observed in the 1600s, you´d think supernovas would be far more common if you went by their theories, especially if you consider that we can see supernovas happen in other galaxies as well.

I think a lot of theories made in cosmology and physics are based on pure mathematical conjecture, I´ve heard the complaint that sometimes these semi-autistic math nerds go out their way to ignore observational data.
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Last edited by Hugo Böse; November 4th, 2012 at 11:10 AM.
 
Old November 4th, 2012 #10
Mr A.Anderson
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Actually, it seems that observing supernova's is a pretty common occurance and dates back a couple thousand years. Sorry for the SLA.

History_of_supernova_observation History_of_supernova_observation

2000 to presentThe "SN 2003fg" was discovered in a forming galaxy in 2003. The appearance of this supernova was studied in "real-time", and it has posed several major physical questions as it seems more massive than the Chandrasekhar limit would allow.[48]

First observed in September 2006, the supernova SN 2006gy, which occurred in a galaxy called NGC 1260 (240 million light-years away), is the largest and, until confirmation of luminosity of SN 2005ap in October 2007, the most luminous supernova ever observed. The explosion was at least 100 times more luminous than any previously observed supernova,[49][50] with the progenitor star being estimated 150 times more massive than the Sun.[51] Although this had some characteristics of a Type Ia supernova, Hydrogen was found in the spectrum.[52] It is thought that SN 2006gy is a likely candidate for a pair-instability supernova. SN 2005ap, which was discovered by Robert Quimby who also discovered SN 2006gy, was about twice as bright as SN 2006gy and about 300 times as bright as a normal type II supernova.[53]

On May 21, 2008, astronomers announced that they had for the first time caught a supernova on camera just as it was exploding. By chance, a burst of X-rays was noticed while looking at galaxy NGC 2770, 88 million light-years from Earth, and a variety of telescopes were aimed in that direction just in time to capture what has been named SN 2008D. "This eventually confirmed that the big X-ray blast marked the birth of a supernova," said Alicia Soderberg of Princeton University.[54]

One of the many amateur astronomers looking for supernovae, Caroline Moore, a member of the Puckett Observatory Supernova Search Team, found supernova SN 2008ha late November 2008. At the age of 14 she has now been declared the youngest person ever to find a supernova.[55][56] However, in January 2011, 10-year old Kathryn Aurora Gray from Canada was reported to have discovered a supernova, making her the youngest ever to find a supernova.[57] Ms. Gray, her father, and a friend spotted SN 2010lt, a magnitude 17 supernova in galaxy UGC 3378 in the constellation Camelopardalis, about 240 million light years away.

In 2009, researchers have found nitrates in ice cores from Antarctica at depths corresponding to the known supernovae of 1006 and 1054 AD, as well as from around 1060 AD. The nitrates were apparently formed from nitrogen oxides created by gamma rays from the supernovae. This technique should be able to detect supernovae going back several thousand years.[58]

On November 15, 2010, astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory announced that, while viewing the remnant of SN 1979C in the galaxy Messier 100, they have discovered an object which could be a young, 30-year-old black hole. NASA also noted the possibility this object could be a spinning neutron star producing a wind of high energy particles.[59]

On August 24, 2011, the Palomar Transient Factory automated survey discovered a new Type 1a supernova (SN 2011fe) in the Pinwheel Galaxy (M101) shortly after it burst into existence. Being only 21 million lightyears away and detected so early after the event started, it will allow scientists to learn more about the early developments of these types of supernovae.[60]
 
Old November 4th, 2012 #11
ATiii
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Media sensationalism. This will never occur and we'll never hear anything else about it, ever.

Alan
 
Old November 4th, 2012 #12
Roy
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This is old news, (UPDATED:10 March 2011 ). And besides, I don't think any time between one and one million years is specific enough for me to start buying spf 1,000,000 sunscreen.

Quote:
Brad Carter, Senior Lecturer of Physics at the University of Southern Queensland in Australia, claimed yesterday that the galactic blast could happen before 2012 – or any time over the next million years.
 
Old November 4th, 2012 #13
Derrick MacThomas
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The question in my mind is: what of the wave of radiation that usually accompanies such an event?
A wave of intense gamma radiation could be our extinction event.
 
Old November 4th, 2012 #14
M.N. Dalvez
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Quote:
A wave of intense gamma radiation could be our extinction event.
Apparently, Betelgeuse is so far away that the radiation from it going supernova wouldn't be too much above the background level.

We're much more likely to cause our own extinction event, if things keep going the way they have been.
 
Old November 4th, 2012 #15
Soldatul Vostru
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Quote:
Originally Posted by M.N. Dalvez View Post
Apparently, Betelgeuse is so far away that the radiation from it going supernova wouldn't be too much above the background level.

We're much more likely to cause our own extinction event, if things keep going the way they have been.
Yes, Betelgeuse is too far away to pose a threat, but it would leave a nice show in the sky for a week or two. They say you want to be at least 10 light-years away from a supernova, but ideally you want to be 100 light-years away just to be sure.
 
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