Heard of this "real death star"?

[miriya]

The story is

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20080310/sc_...ouldstrikeearth

[Roger]

Someone get Bruce Willis on the phone, we have a suicide mission for him.

[miriya]

I just realized that I spelled "Death" incorrectly in the title! What a dim wit I am!

Edited March 10, 2008 by miriya

[jenius]

LOL, I misunderstood. Fascinating read... but it ends by pretty much telling us "don't be concerned.... yet."

Edited March 10, 2008 by jenius

[miriya]

Almost as strange is this story about the US military's new "RAY GUN"

http://60minutes.yahoo.com/segment/145/the_ray_gun

[eugimon]

great, just one more thing to be worried about, impending explosion of the super volcano that is yellowstone, 2012, when nostrodamus and the mayans thought the world would end, and now this... a giant, x-ray beam of death spewing star.

[miriya]

great, just one more thing to be worried about, impending explosion of the super volcano that is yellowstone, 2012, when nostrodamus and the mayans thought the world would end, and now this... a giant, x-ray beam of death spewing star.

And the silly thing is that I am more likely to have a lethal car accident or heart attack or choke on my food and die before being killed by a interstellar phenomena like this or 2012.

[eugimon]

And the silly thing is that I am more likely to have a lethal car accident or heart attack or choke on my food and die before being killed by a interstellar phenomena like this or 2012.

true, but my double double from in&out doesn't fill me nearly as much dread.

[miriya]

true, but my double double from in&out doesn't fill me nearly as much dread.

Funny! Well it ought to huh? It is ironic how the dreadful catastrophes that we worry about rarely kill us and it is the cozy, comforting or otherwise normal stuff that is often the cause of death. I will tell you though that after that 1/2 pound bacon cheese burger I had the other night I was terrified! I could feel my arteries clogging all night long!

[Wes]

and it may explode any time within the next few hundred thousand years

Do I really need to hear a space-based doomsay senario every month or so? It's as though I heard a thousand modestly-paid nerds yell out "FUND ME FUND ME!"...when do they shut up?

[mechaninac]

So, even if this thing were to blow it's proverbial top tomorrow, and if the axial poles were aligned in just the right way to send the "death" beam our way, it would still take 8000 years for doomsday to happen in that cosmic scenario... Interesting read to be sure, but paint me unconcerned.

@Wes: Oh come now. Don't you know that apocalyptic predictions sell much better than rosy prognostications? Just look at your average week on the major networks, cable news, and The Discovery Channel, The History Channel, TLC, etc., etc., ad nauseam, ad infinitum.

Edited March 13, 2008 by mechaninac

[misterryno]

Interesting read. I like all the "if" "ands" and "could possibly"'s in that article.

[Gubaba]

Almost as strange is this story about the US military's new "RAY GUN"

http://60minutes.yahoo.com/segment/145/the_ray_gun

Is that like Nikolai Tesla's "Death Ray" that he claimed caused the Tunguska Event...?

[mechaninac]

Is that like Nikolai Tesla's "Death Ray" that he claimed caused the Tunguska Event...?

Say what?!! I thought the Tunguska Event was caused by "the biggest interdimensional cross-rip" ever recorded until the year 1984...

[Mr March]

Just another reason to get off this rock as soon as we can.

[Gubaba]

Say what?!! I thought the Tunguska Event was caused by "the biggest interdimensional cross-rip" ever recorded until the year 1984...

Really? I thought it was a Supervision Army ship that didn't quite make it...

[jenius]

So, even if this thing were to blow it's proverbial top tomorrow, and if the axial poles were aligned in just the right way to send the "death" beam our way, it would still take 8000 years for doomsday to happen in that cosmic scenario... Interesting read to be sure, but paint me unconcerned.

'

Forgive my ignorance in phsyics but isn't this not true? The star is 8000 light years away right? Or did they estimate it has another 8000 years to live? If the estimate was we have 8000 years to live because of the distance from here I think that'd be wrong. After all, the explosion could have happened 7999 years ago and we just wouldn't see it until tomorrow. I suck with physics though so maybe I've got that wrong.

Edited March 14, 2008 by jenius

[JB0]

'

Forgive my ignorance in phsyics but isn't this not true? The star is 8000 light years away right? Or did they estimate it has another 8000 years to live? If the estimate was we have 8000 years to live because of the distance from here I think that'd be wrong. After all, the explosion could have happened 7999 years ago and we just wouldn't see it until tomorrow. I suck with physics though so maybe I've got that wrong.

You've gotten it exactly right, actually.

People tend to forget that we don't see things as they happen, because they're used to the incredibly short distances of terrestrial life.

It's easy to forget that we're seeing ancient history when we look at the night sky.

Heck, you can see the birth of the universe if you know where to look(the blanket microwave background radiation is an almost unimaginably red-shifted Big Bang).

[mechaninac]

Forgive my ignorance in phsyics but isn't this not true? The star is 8000 light years away right? Or did they estimate it has another 8000 years to live? If the estimate was we have 8000 years to live because of the distance from here I think that'd be wrong. After all, the explosion could have happened 7999 years ago and we just wouldn't see it until tomorrow. I suck with physics though so maybe I've got that wrong.

You've gotten it exactly right, actually.

People tend to forget that we don't see things as they happen, because they're used to the incredibly short distances of terrestrial life.

It's easy to forget that we're seeing ancient history when we look at the night sky.

Heck, you can see the birth of the universe if you know where to look(the blanket microwave background radiation is an almost unimaginably red-shifted Big Bang).

What I said was absolutely true, and there is no estimate of how long the star in that binary system has before it explodes... I guess I did not make myself clear; maybe the way I wrote my post was a little too tongue-in-cheek. If it were to blow up tomorrow, we would not know... not for another 8000 years. By the time we did see the thing blow up, we would be in the process of being bombarded by the X-Rays if they're aimed this way anyway; hence, not concerned. Take Betelgeuse for example: it's a red giant star of about 14 solar masses in the latter stages of it's life cycle that astronomers think is a prime candidate to go super nova very soon in astronomically terms; at 427 light years from our Solar System, Betelgeuse could have blown itself 200 years ago and we would not find out about it for another 227 years. Everything we see in the night sky is representative of the way thing were several minutes (app. 8 min. for our sun) to several billion years in the past (the furthest detectable radiation has been on it's way to us for a bit over 13.7 billion years); when we look at the cosmos we are, in essence, looking into the past.

Edited March 14, 2008 by mechaninac

[mikeszekely]

You've gotten it exactly right, actually.

People tend to forget that we don't see things as they happen, because they're used to the incredibly short distances of terrestrial life.

It's easy to forget that we're seeing ancient history when we look at the night sky.

Heck, you can see the birth of the universe if you know where to look(the blanket microwave background radiation is an almost unimaginably red-shifted Big Bang).

What I said was absolutely true, and there is no estimate of how long the star in that binary system has before it explodes... I guess I did not make myself clear; maybe the way I wrote my post was a little too tongue-in-cheek. If it were to blow up tomorrow, we would not know... not for another 8000 years. By the time we did see the thing blow up, we would be in the process of being bombarded by the X-Rays if they're aimed this way anyway; hence, not concerned. Take Betelgeuse for example: it's a red giant star of about 14 solar masses in the latter stages of it's life cycle that astronomers think is a prime candidate to go super nova very soon in astronomically terms; at 427 light years from our Solar System, Betelgeuse could have blown itself 200 years ago and we would not find out about it for another 227 years. Everything we see in the night sky is representative of the way thing were several minutes (app. 8 min. for our sun) to several billion years in the past (the furthest detectable radiation has been on it's way to us for a bit over 13.7 billion years); when we look at the cosmos we are, in essence, looking into the past.

It's correct that if it explodes tomorrow, we have 8000 years before we have to start worrying. But it's also true that that it could have exploded 7999 years ago, and we won't know until we see it a year from now. If scientists see it exploding, it's already too late.

[Gubaba]

It's correct that if it explodes tomorrow, we have 8000 years before we have to start worrying. But it's also true that that it could have exploded 7999 years ago, and we won't know until we see it a year from now. If scientists see it exploding, it's already too late.

Dude, that's TOTALLY the tagline for the movie...

(cue ominous music)

DEEP MOVIE VOICE GUY: The scientists have seen it...and it's already TOO LATE!

[mechaninac]

Dude, that's TOTALLY the tagline for the movie...

(cue ominous music)

DEEP MOVIE VOICE GUY: The scientists have seen it...and it's already TOO LATE!

Starring Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton, Ben Affleck, Liv Tyler, and directed by Michael Bay... wait

[JB0]

What I said was absolutely true, and there is no estimate of how long the star in that binary system has before it explodes... I guess I did not make myself clear; maybe the way I wrote my post was a little too tongue-in-cheek. If it were to blow up tomorrow, we would not know... not for another 8000 years. By the time we did see the thing blow up, we would be in the process of being bombarded by the X-Rays if they're aimed this way anyway; hence, not concerned. Take Betelgeuse for example: it's a red giant star of about 14 solar masses in the latter stages of it's life cycle that astronomers think is a prime candidate to go super nova very soon in astronomically terms; at 427 light years from our Solar System, Betelgeuse could have blown itself 200 years ago and we would not find out about it for another 227 years. Everything we see in the night sky is representative of the way thing were several minutes (app. 8 min. for our sun) to several billion years in the past (the furthest detectable radiation has been on it's way to us for a bit over 13.7 billion years); when we look at the cosmos we are, in essence, looking into the past.

Right.

You're missing the other side of that coin, even though you use it to make your point with Betelgeuse.

Since we're looking into the past, we have no way of knowing if a star has actually exploded or not. There is, in fact, no guarantee that WR104's Wolf-Rayet has not ALREADY detonated, possibly a VERY long time ago.

If that star explodes today, we won't know for 8 millenia. But if it exploded 8 millenia ago, we'll be finding out any day now.

Of course, this is a lot of discussion for a gamma ray burst that only MIGHT be aimed at us.

[miriya]

even if it is aimed in our general direction, the chances of Earth being in the actual pathway would be insanely slim, right? I do not know what the width of a gamma ray like this is but I am guessing that this is an incredibly slim chance if a chance at all.

[Kyp Durron]

even if it is aimed in our general direction, the chances of Earth being in the actual pathway would be insanely slim, right? I do not know what the width of a gamma ray like this is but I am guessing that this is an incredibly slim chance if a chance at all.

If I remember right, they said that the beam would already be several light years wide by the time it gets here. :-|

-Kyp

[miriya]

If I remember right, they said that the beam would already be several light years wide by the time it gets here. :-|

-Kyp

Oh, right, so that is quite large!

[mechaninac]

Right.

You're missing the other side of that coin, even though you use it to make your point with Betelgeuse.

Since we're looking into the past, we have no way of knowing if a star has actually exploded or not. There is, in fact, no guarantee that WR104's Wolf-Rayet has not ALREADY detonated, possibly a VERY long time ago.

If that star explodes today, we won't know for 8 millenia. But if it exploded 8 millenia ago, we'll be finding out any day now.

Of course, this is a lot of discussion for a gamma ray burst that only MIGHT be aimed at us.

Now you're just going around in circles. I'm not missing the other side of the coin, as you put it, because the other side is just the same side stated in a different fashion: if it blows up today we'll know in 8K years, if it already blew up 8 millennia ago we'll know shortly; it's the same thing... C is constant in a vacuum so the light will take 8000 years to cross the distance, so if you feel your chromosomes disintegrating by this time tomorrow you'll know that WT104 may have indeed exploded 8K years ago (excluding other causes for a massive X-Ray overdose). Of course there is no way to know if/when a star has/did explode before the radiation reaches us. The only time we are able to know of any such occurrence is when the EM radiation reaches us, and when it does, if it's lethal, there is nothing to be done about it anyway unless you're in a deep cave or a deeply submerged Nuclear Sub when the fireworks gets here. And this brings me to my original statement... unconcerned.

[jenius]

So, even if this thing were to blow it's proverbial top tomorrow, and if the axial poles were aligned in just the right way to send the "death" beam our way, it would still take 8000 years for doomsday to happen in that cosmic scenario... Interesting read to be sure, but paint me unconcerned.

The only point I meant to make, and the one I think that JBO is affirming, is that in the quote I've taken from page one above, you didn't acknowledge that it could have blown 7999 years ago and we wouldn't know about it until tomorrow. So yes, if it blows today we have a lot of time left but if it blew 7999 years ago that'd be more reason to be more concerned... of course we'll never know when it actually blows until we see the repercussions 8000 years later so there's still no reason to be concerned.

[mechaninac]

The only point I meant to make, and the one I think that JBO is affirming, is that in the quote I've taken from page one above, you didn't acknowledge that it could have blown 7999 years ago and we wouldn't know about it until tomorrow. So yes, if it blows today we have a lot of time left but if it blew 7999 years ago that'd be more reason to be more concerned... of course we'll never know when it actually blows until we see the repercussions 8000 years later so there's still no reason to be concerned.

Is it really, absolutely, positively, necessary to explicitly voice every possible permutation and minutia in a simple statement meant as a moderately sarcastic response in a thread where it can be assumed, by the very nature of the topic at hand, that those reading it are well enough versed in the basics of the physics involved to understand the idea(s) presented without said ideas needing to be pre-digested, and without the knee-jerk jumping to conclusions regarding the poster's understanding of the subject or any part thereof? Or is it just the nature of the Internet Forum beast that any statement must be dissected for any existing, and more often only perceived, flaw in order to poke holes in same or otherwise diminish what is being stated regardless of whether the statement is true or not?

This If/Could've/Would've/Did it/Didn't it/Will it/Won't it merry-go-round is beginning to look more and more like a Schrödinger's cat experiment...

[jenius]

Is it really, absolutely, positively, necessary to explicitly voice every possible permutation and minutia in a simple statement meant as a moderately sarcastic response in a thread where it can be assumed, by the very nature of the topic at hand, that those reading it are well enough versed in the basics of the physics involved to understand the idea(s) presented without said ideas needing to be pre-digested, and without the knee-jerk jumping to conclusions regarding the poster's understanding of the subject or any part thereof?

Man, I don't know jack poo about intergalactic travel, gamma ray bursts, or stars with huge names. I was just trying to figure out if we necessarily had 8K years to live or if the explosion could come sooner. Sorry I posed that question in such a way as to ask if any particular member's understanding was right or wrong or included both sides of the light speed coin.

[mechaninac]

Man, I don't know jack poo about intergalactic travel, gamma ray bursts, or stars with huge names. I was just trying to figure out if we necessarily had 8K years to live or if the explosion could come sooner. Sorry I posed that question in such a way as to ask if any particular member's understanding was right or wrong or included both sides of the light speed coin.

No need for apologies. Beside it wasn't your post that read like a "you don't know jack" assumption. It was this one by JBO:

People tend to forget that we don't see things as they happen, because they're used to the incredibly short distances of terrestrial life.

When I read your original question I just did a minor double take and thought to myself... "that's true but isn't that the idea I just put forth, only not is so many words?", and felt it was unnecessary for me to add anything to it; but after that, the above remark appeared and I felt that what I said needed clarification. Now I feel the need to apologize for the confusion.

[JB0]

I wasn't really trying to be rude. Sorry I came off that way.

I genuinely thought it was an innocent oversight(one that's easy to make, even if you know better).

Anyways, confusion cleared. We're all gonna die. Eventually.

Resume normal conversation.