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Eta Carinae, Soon To Be a Local Supernova
da4 writes "Phil Plait over at Bad Astronomy has a great article about Eta Car, a star approx 7,500 light years away from us that's ready to supernova sometime Real Soon Now." Larger versions of the Hubble-Chandra image of Eta Car are available at the Chandra site. Of course when astronomers say it's "about to explode," they really mean it probably exploded 6,500 to 7,500 years ago and we're awaiting the news.
I don't know if we should take the word of someone who runs a site called 'Bad Astronomy'...
:-)
*checks TFA*
The blue part is an optical image from Hubble, and shows the bipolar lobes of gas ejected when Eta Car had a coughing fit back in the 1840s. That's 20 octillion tons of gas (20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) it ejected at about a million miles per hour, in case you're not getting enough awesome in your diet.
I withdraw the objection.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
Of course when astronomers say it's "about to explode," they really mean it probably exploded 6,500 to 7,500 years ago and we're awaiting the news.
could you clear up that 'sun rise' and 'sun set' thing for me as well?
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
So, do I need to build a lead-lined concrete bunker in my garden?
Stick Men
All I can say is, if you see Al Gore, Michael Moore and Noam Chomsky wearing robes and riding camels... run like hell.
Now.
Now?
Now.
I can't
Why?
We missed it.
When?
Just now.
When will then be now?
Soon!
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
what exactly could we expect?
Half the face of the earth being wiped off the face of the earth, followed by the survivors banding together and developing spaceships, stations, and moon bases for the purpose of defending the solar system and Earth from the debris that would arrive centuries later.
Ultimately, the plan will be successful thanks to a couple of genius school kids and a giant robot.
Way to fall into the editor's trap, trying to spur spurious discussion about whether events outside our lightcone actually happened before they intersected our lightcone. The editors may feel we need help in starting a discussion on many stories.
I just hope that any local civilizations had advanced far enough to escape that horrible fate.
At the rate we're going, what with news of Congress living up to their name (opposite of progress) with regard to exploration the exploration of Mars, we won't escape the fate of our solar system.
Resistance is futile. Your technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. You will become one with the morgue
Does that mean that cat I ran over last night in my car was not necessarily born yet so I didn't really run over it ? Phew, I was having a bit of a guilt trip....
"You know, you blow up one sun and suddenly everyone expects you to walk on water."
"...rubbing my dick on pictures of bob saget, and i'm ready to explode real soon now, too." ... and the name of this show, The Aristocrats!
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Keep in mind that on a cosmolical scale, that could be within 10,000 years or so, a few nuclear wars and greenhouse disasters later. ;-)
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Well, it's not likely to be a dupe...
It's a very, very large gamma ray laser, created by a very patient race with an enemy living in a globular cluster whose orbit around the galaxy will take it into the path of the polar emission stream.
The other pole's stream will be redirected with a vibrating unobtanium mirror and used to paint advertising slogans in a gas cloud on the edge of the Lesser Magellanic Cloud.
Don't think you are so important that nothing happens unless you observe it, earthman.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
You'd see that in this case, you need to use the future past perfect subjunctive, which would be:
"The star is about to will had haven been exploding."