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Star explosion effects ?


Washy

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A totally different subject for me. I read about this star explosion in the Milky Way on www.BBCnews.com science pages, link below.

Apparently a massive explosion occured in space lighting up the moon and with much more power than our own sun.  Scientists say that if it had been nearer it could have caused some form of extinction......? 

Was not the tsunami some kind of extinction?  It was one day earlier, and the star explosion had been travelling for some 50,000 light years.  A coincidence?  Any science buffs out there?

I do not remember hearing much about it on the news in UK or France.

Here is a link  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4278005.stm

Otherwise you could find it through the bbc science pages.

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First of all it is an absolute coincidence. Light (or any radiation) from a far-distant object could not trigger an earthquake here. Secondly, the tsunami was not an extinction event: no species were totally wiped out by it.

Nearer in this case means within 10 light-years (compared to 50,000), and the chances of that are zero - there just aren't enough stars in that volume of space for one to destruct in this way, and none of them are magnetars, the type that explode like this.
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Dick is right, it is a complete coincidence.

The event itself is very interesting, though -- very rare. I'm sure there will be more work on that in the future.

If you're interested in the effects a stellar explosion might have on our solar system, the star Betelgeuse (which is in Orion) could explode in a few hundred years or so. It's about 500 light-years away, so a factor of 100 closer than this neutron star quake. Plus, it would be about a million times more powerful in terms of energy release. That type of explosion would be easily visible during the day.

Scientists love to say stuff like "if it were on our doorstep it would have killed us all" to make it newsworthy, but as Dick said there are only a handful of stars that close to us, and none of them are going to explode anytime soon, if ever; none are neutron stars.
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"If you're interested in the effects a stellar explosion might have on our solar system, the star Betelgeuse (which is in Orion) could explode in a few hundred years or so."

That will really upset Ford Prefect, it's one of his favorite stopping off places, a real hub where you can hitch a lift almost anywhere. Anyway anyone who is anyone knows that the Earth was destroyed by the Vogons to make way for an interstella bypass ?

"You've gota build bypasses"

John.

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