Supernova threatening the Earth ?

[Nyarlathotep]

Found this article. Might intrest some of you :)

[Edric O]

Perhaps it will go nova in December 2012? :D

[Dunenewt]

I don't want to be fried...

[Nyarlathotep]

Perhaps it will go nova in December 2012? :D

If we see it go supernova, would mean that it already happened 3,260 years ago..

Would be interesting to see a calculation from time of going Supernova, when radiation would hit Earth :)

(or an estimate at least). I believe matter in such cases will travel at 370.000km per second.

[Khan]

I don't want to be fried...

You prefer oven chips?

[Nyarlathotep]

Perhaps it will go nova in December 2012? :D

You do realize Dec 2012 is wrongly calculated right ? ;)

[Dunenewt]

You prefer oven chips?

Not a big fan of the 'you are what you eat' theory!

[SandChigger]

You do realize Dec 2012 is wrongly calculated right ? ;)

There is always that point, too. :)

I didn't realize that a supernova as far away as 1,000 parsecs could still be that dangerous. Yikes ... there are supergiants closer than that ... supernovas just waiting to happen. Canopus, for example.

(Not saying I hope it happens, but it would be amusing if it did and you could see that final look on THEIR faces when it sinks in that all that apocalypse and "second coming" nonsense was just that and nothing more. Oh the humanity! ;D )

[Edric O]

Not to spoil the fun, but we're not actually talking about an end-of-the-world event here. More like a skyrocketing-skin-cancer-rates event. For all the "fry the Earth" rhetoric, the only effect they explicitly mentioned was the destruction of the Ozone Layer.

If any supernova going off within 1000 parsecs was enough to cause a mass extinction event, we would have had FAR more of them in the history of the Earth than we actually did.

[Nyarlathotep]

the only effect they explicitly mentioned was the destruction of the Ozone Layer.

Well I lack the knowledge to state the exact effect, but it ain't good to not have an Ozone layer :)

[SandChigger]

The original article author can't write for shite then:

the gamma radiation emitted by the supernova <b>would fry the Earth</b>

However, when contacted by Scientific American, Dr Sion said that the term "soon" in the press announcement meant that "At the accretion rate we derived, the white dwarf in T Pyxidis will reach the Chandrasekhar Limit <b>in ten million years</b>." By that time it will have moved far enough away from the solar system to have little effect.

Because of its relatively close distance, some contend that a T Pyxidis supernova could have a significant impact on Earth. The received gamma radiation would equal the total (all spectra) radiation of approximately 1000 solar flares, and would severely damage the ozone layer. The X-radiation that reaches Earth, however, would be less than the X-radiation of a single average solar flare. However, Dr. Sion's calculations were challenged by Prof. Alex Fillipenko who said that Sion had possibly miscalculated the damage that could be caused by a T Pyxidis supernova. He had used data for a far more deadly gamma-ray burst (GRB) exploding 3,260 light-years from Earth, not a supernova, and T Pyxidis certainly isn't expected to produce a GRB. According to an another expert, "A supernova would have to be 10 times closer [to Earth] to do the damage described."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T_Pyxidis

I guess all God's chilluns won't get their Buffalo wings just yet.

[Andrew]

No, a nearby supernova won