The Nearest Supernova Candidate To Earth: IK Pegasi

Posted by Soulskill on Friday May 18, 2012 @07:07AM from the universe-is-a-crazy-place dept.

The Bad Astronomer writes "What's the nearest star to Earth that can explode as a supernova? Spica, at 260 light years away, is the nearest massive star that can explode, but IK Pegasi — a Sirius-like binary composed of a normal star and a white dwarf — will also one day blow. At a distance of 150 light years, it's truly the closest supernova candidate. Happily, that's too far away to damage the Earth when it goes off — and it won't explode for millions of years at least, by which time it'll be even farther away. Either way, we're safe... for now."

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Are We Zoned For This? by avgjoe62 · 2012-05-18 07:15 · Score: 4, Funny

I'll have to go down to the local planning office in Alpha Centauri and see if they've got a permit for a supernova that close to the planned hyperspace bypass...

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Re:Eta Carinae and the definition of near by BobNET · 2012-05-18 09:27 · Score: 4, Insightful

When you're standing 2 metres away from someone, and they say "hey, what are you doing now?", do you reply "did you mean 0.0000000066712819 seconds ago?"