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.

Comments

If we detected it today. . .

[Platupous]

What would be the repercussions for earth? Since the lobes are pointed away, we don't seem to be in danger, but surely there would be some effects, what exactly would they be? (Besides "Good show"!)

What if the lobes were pointed this way, what exactly could we expect? (Besides "Bad!")

Re:Neutron emissions

[WrongMonkey]

Note that the lobes appear to be tilted away from us by about 40 degrees or so. That's a good thing. When stars like Eta Carinae explode, they tend to shoot of beams of energy and matter that, at its distance of 7500 light years, could kill every living thing on Earth. But since it's pointed away from us, all we'll get is a spectacular light show. It could potentially wipe out life on Earth, but its pointed in the wrong direction...hopefully.

Seeing Eta Carinae for yourself

[spaceyhackerlady]

The southern hemisphere sky has lots of goodies that us northern types don't get to see, and the Eta Carinae region is one of them. The nebula is slightly larger than the Orion Nebula as seen from Earth, but slightly dimmer. To me it looks like a flower blooming in space. It is accompanied by zillions of other nebulae and star clusters.

The Milky Way through Centaurus and Carina is why astronomers often go to places like Australia for their vacations. I've taken a telescope to Costa Rica several times myself, and while the view isn't as good as it is in Australia, it's a lot less travel. The only thing we really miss out on from Costa Rica are the Magellanic Clouds, which look far better from New South Wales than they do from Guanacaste. The vague smudges down at the Tico horizon are detached pieces of the Milky Way in the Aussie country sky.

My first view of the Eta Carinae region was with binoculars from St. Kilda Beach in Melbourne. It's not something one quickly forgets.

...laura

What makes you tick, pln2bz?

[spun]

You know, I've read your Electric Universe arguments here many times before, and I'm curious. What's your background? What drew you to the EU theory?

I'll tell you the problem I have with the theory, it's the whole, "There is no fusion in stars, it's all electric!" thing. Certainly we don't know everything there is to know about plasma, and certainly the mainstream theories do not have everything nailed down, but come on! The science behind star fusion is so interwoven with all of modern knowledge and technology that if something as major as EU were true, almost everything else we know would have to be false, and all our technology would be very different.

The thing is, the Electric Universe folks make an extraordinary claim. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. If anyone in the EU community had that proof, they would be world famous rather than the marginalized outcasts they are. It's not like there haven't been MAJOR scientific revolutions in the past, it's just that THOSE guys had incontrovertible hard data to back them up.

At first I thought you might just be a clever troll, but your tenacity on this subject goes far beyond the casual interests of a troll. I think you really believe all this, and rather than make me think you are an idiot, which you clearly are not, it makes me very curious about what makes you tick.

Re:What makes you tick, pln2bz?

[pln2bz]

Hey, it's my old friend! The memories ... ;)

The real issue at hand here is that the mainstream astrophysicists and enthusiasts today refuse to seriously consider the legitimate issues that Electric Universe Theory proposes. There is so little awareness on the mainstream side that the group as a whole is completely oblivious when an EU Theory is even validated -- which happens far more often than is being accepted. In order to confirm or deny a theory, it's important to first fully digest it. Even if the materials do not meet your typical requirements for mathematics, that does not necessarily imply that they are inherently false and unworthy of consideration. They are still ideas.

This constant insistence on peer review studies is a bit of a cop-out. It is really more of an excuse to prevent consideration of the theory by people who have come to depend upon the status quo. There are plenty of rather simple laboratory experiments that can validate the concept of electrical terra-forming -- especially with respect to Mars. I can go through the list, but few mainstreamers want to even hear about it.

The theory of uniformitarianism is slowly trending out of fashion. It's becoming increasingly acceptable within mainstream geology and archaeology circles that some sort of violent process could have occurred within human history. In other words, catastrophism is gradually being co-opted by the mainstream -- but without any consideration of plasmas, contacting plasma spheres or electrical interactions. It's generally thought that impacts are really just physical collisions, which lead to explosions. But there have been few attempts to actually demonstrate this by inducing an impact of some sort. The one attempt at an impact that has occurred -- the Deep Impact mission -- seemed to suggest a pre-impact flash that would correspond with the conjunction of two plasma spheres. But since other explanations exist, the mainstream astrophysicists gravitate to those other explanations. Rather than follow the anomalous data in an objective manner, they spend more time attempting to conform the data to mainstream theories.

If EU Theory wasn't true, then it would eventually become clear during the course of researching it. However, the sheer number of supportive details suggests that it likely is true. The more I read about it, the more this picture gets filled in. There are certainly gaps in the understanding and mathematical clarity, but there are no anomalies in EU Theory as there are within the mainstream circles. You will surely argue that this is because it's not a mature theory at this point in time, but that's not the point. The theory as a whole works quite well -- oftentimes better than the mainstream theories. There are actually many things that EU Theory explains that the mainstream theories avoid like the plague.

The idea that EU Theory says that there is no fusion occurring on stars is btw false. From http://www.electric-cosmos.org/sun.htm:

The z-pinch effect of high intensity, parallel current filaments in an arc plasma is very strong. Whatever nuclear fusion is taking place on the Sun is occurring here in the double layer (DL) at the top of the photosphere (not deep within the core). The result of this fusion process are the "metals" that give rise to absorption lines in the Sun's spectrum. Traces of sixty eight of the ninety two natural elements are found in the Sun's atmosphere. Most of the radio frequency noise emitted by the Sun emanates from this region. Radio noise is a well known property of DLs. The electrical power available to be delivered to the plasma at any point is the product of the E-field (Volts per meter) times current density (Amps per square meter). This multiplication operation yields Watts per cubic meter. The current density is relatively constant over the height of the photospheric / chromospheric layers. However, the E-field is by fa

Re:Gamma Rays

[The Bad Astronomer]

Oh, I prefer vodka or tequila, but the point is still true. :) It's not so much that we talk conservatively, as it is that people tend to tale whatever small thing you say and run with it. At least in my case that's true! I try to lay things out pretty clearly if I can. I think Eta has maybe a few hundred years left before it blows, tops, but others might give it longer. The point is, *we don't know*. But it'll be cool when it does explode. Woohoo!

Re:Don't hold your breath

[IWannaBeAnAC]

The timespan isn't millions of years; the time since the star started shedding nitrogen is only a few hundred years (? I can't be bothered going back to the article - but anyway it is much less than millions).

for a slightly sick analogy, predicting the lifetime of a child at birth is hard to do with any accuracy. Predicting the lifetime of someone dying of cancer is much easier ;-)

Re:Bad Astronomy?

[The Master Control P]

Eh, I'm up for some shits'n'giggles and I've got some time to pass. Of course, the fact that I disagree is certain proof that I am part of "the conspiracy" which is defined as anyone who thinks you're wrong and refuses to immediately acknowledge your obvious correctness.

Arguing that arguments that are not peer-reviewed by mainstream astrophysicists do not count is disingenuous. People who have staked their careers on the mainstream theories will resist every attempt at disruptive paradigm shifts.

Right. The guy who comes up with proof that one of our most basic theories is erroneous will be hated. He most certainly will not be one of the most celebrated scientists of all time like Einstein, and he most definitely will not win a Nobel prize for his insights. Because scientists hate discovering new and remarkable things they didn't know about before. History is full of scientists like John Levy, whose work on asteroid impacts was supressed by The Establishment even after he presented clear and convincing evidence that he was correct... No, wait, asteroid impacts are in every geology and astronomy book today.

The announcement made by the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) that the SNO detector has the capability to determine whether solar neutrinos are changing their type en route to Earth is false on its face. There is no way that measurements made at only one end (here on Earth) of a transmission channel (that stretches from the Suns center to Earth) can reveal changes that occur farther up the channel (say, within the Sun itself, or near Mercury or Venus).

Consider a freight train that runs from New York to Chicago. We live in Chicago and are only able to observe the train as it arrives in Chicago. It pulls in with 4 freight cars, 2 tank cars, and 1 flat car. How is it possible, no matter how sophisticated our method of observation, for us to make any conclusions whatever about whether freight cars, tank cars, or flat cars have been added to or subtracted from the train at, say, Cleveland? Moreover, how is it possible to say that freight cars have turned into tank cars or flat cars along the route somewhere?

Horray for superficially plausible but completely incorrect analogies. Regardless of whatever happens to neutrinos on their way to earth, they can't simply disappear. Your analogy is simply wrong, because we do know that matter-energy was not added or lost in the neutrino stream, because neutrinos don't interact with squat. So now, we think we know what the train was like when it left. We know nothing was added or lost, yet the cars aren't what we expected. Is the logical conclusion that the neutrino waveforms changed or that it's all a giant conspiracy?

Sustained nuclear fusion using extreme heat and pressure is a Will-O-the-Wisp (literal meaning - fools fire) that has been desperately sought after for over 50 years. It has never been obtained in any laboratory. Its existence in the Suns core is nothing more than a proclaimed hypothesis. We cannot see into the Sun. We cannot observe what is occurring below the photosphere. The Electric Sun model does indeed include the probability that empirically confirmed nuclear fusion is occurring near the surface of the Sun.

Let me make sure I've got this right... you're comparing the conditions in experimental fusion reactors to those which exist in the core of a star? And then saying that since our fusion reactors don't work, starfusion doesn't work? I'm afraid there are some minor differences, like the fact that the core of a star is compacted to twenty times the density of lead by gravity. There's also the basic fact that energy loss is proportional to area and fusion output to volume, which puts our tiny reactors at a slight disadvantage.

Either you truly don't know these things about fusion physics, which casts doubt on how much else you don't know, or you are intentionally ignoring them.