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'Death Star' Aimed at Earth
An anonymous reader writes "A spectacular, rotating binary star system is a ticking time bomb, ready to throw out a searing beam of high-energy gamma rays that could lead to a major extinction event — and Earth may be right in the line of fire. Australian science magazine Cosmos Magazine reports: 'Though the risk may be remote, there is evidence that gamma ray bursts have swept over the planet at various points in Earth's history with a devastating effect on life. A 2005 study showed that a gamma-ray burst originating within 6,500 light years of Earth could be enough to strip away the ozone layer and cause a mass extinction. Researchers led by Adrian Melott at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, U.S., suggest that such an event may have been responsible for a mass extinction 443 million years ago, in the late Ordovician period, which wiped out 60 per cent of life and cooled the planet.'"
443 million years ago
How do these fancy-pants "scientists" know what happened 442,994,000 years before Earth was created?
Trolling is a art,
You mean I've been driving a Prius and spending my beer money on renewable energy only to have this happen!??!
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Had to be said ...
It was nice knowing you.
cmd-q.co.uk - some sort of stupid fucking internet bullshit
I own a very old house with lead paint all over the ceiling. Since your survival depends on renting my basement, I think I'll start the bidding at $100,000/mo+utils, no pets.
The problem is that we see the star as it was 6500 years ago. As far as we know, it could have already exploded, and a good bunch of gamma rays be coming to us right now. So you were right, we're doomed ^^
This is really no problem at all. I'm sure we'll find a critical flaw in the star that will allow us to destroy it in the nick of time. Possibly an exhaust port or something like that.
if years > 6000 and state == Kansas: Bad_Evolution_Jokes()
John Titor would have warned us.
>> Cosmos Magazine reports
Other articles include:
10 Fabulous Handbags for the Apocalypse
Is Your Man Cheating? Find Out With A Quantum Telescope.
Lose Weight Fast - New Dark Matter Diet.
If these rays cool the planet, and Global Warming warms the planet, we should stay a nice luke-warm and be fine, right?
Except for the searing ultraviolet from a lack of ozone, I would say you are about spot on.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
The science on that episode (and most later episodes) was like the computer terminology thrown around in Hackers-- if you knew how wrong it was, it was almost painful to watch/hear. IIRC, the pulsars looked like empty toilet paper rolls with light coming out of the ends. And they didn't just irradiate Earth and leave it physically intact but lifeless, they made it blow up. Ugh, I'm shaking my head in disgust at the mere memory of it.
That show started off great and is 100% responsible for me getting interested in the alternate-history genre. Unfortunately, after the creator left they just resorted to stealing movie plots and it got downright ridiculous and pathetic.
~Philly
I saw a show a year or two ago that said scientists believe the earth could soon lose its atmosphere in same the way that they think Mars once did due to the flipping or loss of its magnetic field as the core continues to flow and cool. I can't recall the name of the show but a quick Google show that Nova covered this in 2003.
You mean I've been driving a Prius and spending my beer money on renewable energy only to have this happen!??!
Bart: Aw, recycling's useless, Lis. Once the Sun burns out, this planet is doomed. You're just making sure we spend our last days using inferior products.
~Philly
To Americans, at least, it's obvious. It hates our freedom.
That would explain why his ping sucks in TF2.
Right here.
And faster than light communications, otherwise the message will reach us at eh same time as the radiation.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
message: Ha Ha
Then the gamma ray hits.
So let me see if I've got this right...
If a GRB hits us in the next 10 years, the Earth is cooked and we're screwed. Game over.
If a GRB hits us in the next 100 years, the Earth is cooked, and although I'm gone, life on Earth is still screwed. Game over.
If a GRB hits us in the next 1000 years, the Earth is still cooked, I'm long gone as are the vast majority of my descendants, but maybe mankind (assuming we live that long) will have found the means to leave the planet and preserve itself. However, life on Earth is still screwed. Game over.
Ditto for 10k years, 100k, etc. Basically, there's very little we can do to save the Earth, and next to nothing we can do collectively to save ourselves, except for a few lucky individuals. Thus, the long term goal shouldn't be figuring out how to protect the Earth, but rather we should be figuring out how to preserve our legacy. Fighting against Mother Nature has proven time and time again to be futile.
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
Let's start by putting some detectors out in space that ping us every second. When the burst hits the sensors out there in space and destroys them we'll know here on Earth because the pings will stop. Put them out about a light year away and we'll have a whole year to prepare.
See, problem solved.
Reminds me of an old joke:
A man has gained an audience with God.
Man: Oh Lord, what is a million years like to you?
God: To me, my son, a million years is but a day.
Man: Oh Lord, what is a million dollars like to you?
God: To me, my son, a million dollars is but a penny.
Man: Oh Lord, would you give me a penny?
God: Tomorrow.
While such Wolf-Rayet doubles, or the LBV in Eta Carniae are definitely pre-supernovae, it is unlikely that they are likely gamma ray burst sources. GRB's have a very strong preference for low metallicity environments, almost certainly because higher metal levels cause them to loose too much mass angular momentum. In this region of the galaxy, the metal levels is too high to have a high unlikelihood of GRB's. Also note that for the GRB to propagate into space, the star must first have blown off its envelope, or the GRB is absorbed in the stellar atmosphere and simply adds to the explosion energy (this is probably quite common).
Actually you're wrong. The word day is used in many contexts in the Bible. The creative days mentioned in the Bible are not literal 24 hour days. In context they refer to periods. There are also scriptures in both Old and New Testaments that say "a thousand years are but as a day in God's eyes" so at bare minimum the creative days would be 6000 years. But what people fail to realise is that there are two creative periods. Genesis 1:1 says "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" but from Genesis 1:2 onwards it talks about creative days on Earth and in the original Hebrew the language indicated it was from the perspective of someone standing on the earth looking up so the creation of the sun, moon, and stars would have seemed to have just happened as a dark cloud was removed thus unveiling the luminaries. The problem with those decrying the Bible is that most of them have never read it so they know stuff all about it. For all the mocking if people read it they'd realise it is a fascinating book with prophecies which have been so accurate that in many cases it's been accused of being written after the fact which is wrong considering that Daniel had the book of Isaiah before the fall of Babylon and Isaiah had written not only that Babylon will fall but who and how (Isaiah 45:1-25) which is the only prophecy to mention a person by name and was written 200 years before the event. Archeology backs up most of the Bible so it's not just a book to be taken on faith.
"Total destruction the only solution" - Bob Marley