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What Happens When Betelgeuse Explodes?
StartsWithABang writes: One of the great, catastrophic truths of the Universe is that everything has an expiration date. And this includes every single point of light in the entire sky. The most massive stars will die in a spectacular supernova explosion when their final stage of core fuel runs out. At only an estimated 600 light years distant, Betelgeuse is one (along with Antares) of the closest red supergiants to us, and it's estimated to have only perhaps 100,000 years until it reaches the end of its life. Here's the story on what we can expect to see (and feel) on Earth when Betelgeuse explodes.
Now you left me wondering about what's could possibly be the civilization's next paycheck.
I have supernova insurance
Table-ized A.I.
Nope, nothing happened.
where Ford Prefect and Zaphod Beeblebrox come from?
A long winded article where the crucial information "a little brighter" is hidden between 2 pages of fluff.
In Q2 we are all going to die, so we should shift as many receivables into Q1 as possible to make our metrics.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Er, no.
The Club of Rome said total collapse before 2000. Back in 1970. They've been saying this ever since I've been alive - just updating the date to keep the scam running.
In the 1960s it was overpopulation that would kill us. It has been several other things since. But the two fixed points that they always make are that:
1 - Human Civilisation is just about to collapse
2 - The Club of Rome needs more money...
Indeed, it doesn't really say much interesting. Half the article is about the definition of absolute and relative magnitude (yawn...), then they say it will be about a quarter as bright as the moon. What about radiation? Lots of highly charged particles will be coming our way. Could give a pretty significant EMP pulse.
The Club of Rome said total collapse 2040-ish.
Even if they have, so what? There's two things to note. They've been wrong before.
And second, total collapse isn't going to impact the developed world like it will the worst off parts of the world. Places like Africa or Asia would be hit far harder than places like North America or Europe. This is quite relevant because those are also the places causing most of the overpopulation problem in the first place.
This is one of the ugly facts about overpopulation that groups like the Club of Rome tend to gloss over. Population growth is only happening in certain locations. And since the consequences of population growth also will happen in those same locations, it gives a strong disincentive to care if the shit hits the fan. We aren't all in this together.
My point behind this is to point out what should be obvious. The developing world has the overpopulation problem and has the extreme vulnerability to global trade collapse. Meanwhile the developed world has fixed its shit more or less. Sure there's a few Californias and Greeces out there, but for the most part, the developed world is going to weather any "total collapse".
The Club of Rome is all set to blame the people who aren't causing the problems. Why? Because that's where the money is.
Yes.
But not by much. It's nearly 200 parsecs away now, and it's moving at about 30 parsecs per million years. So it'll be less than 2% farther away when it booms. Much less, since its relative motion is such that most of those three parsecs will be lateral motion instead of motion away from us.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Its galactic orbit is pretty similar to the Sun's, so its motion relative to the sun is not that large. Still, even if we assumed that only the sun moved, given the galactic speed of the sun, the change in distance would still only be 6 light years, or 1% of its current distance.
If Betelgeuse was going to supernova tomorrow, there'd still be nothing to be concerned about -- just something to be excited about.
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And second, total collapse isn't going to impact the developed world like it will the worst off parts of the world. Places like Africa or Asia would be hit far harder than places like North America or Europe.
Thats an odd thing to say, considering there are millions of people in Africa that still live as if the developed world doesn't exist - subsistence farming using manual labour, hoes and oxen (just like we did a few hundred years ago), little to no access to modern medical practices (just like us a few hundred years ago), little access to education (just like us a few hundred years ago), little access to electricity (just like us a few hundred years ago) etc etc.
These people go about their daily lives tending the fields, trading small amounts of produce with each other and the surrounding villages, living in mud huts, boiling water over wood burning fires and treating broken bones with wooden splints. If someone can afford a token amount of modern medical help, they walk (or get carried) for dozens of miles to attend a clinic, otherwise they make do without.
In the event of a global collapse, these people will simply carry on as before.
Seems to depend on type of nova:
http://news.nationalgeographic...
Here, they claim 6500 light years - but it might be for hypernova rather than supernova.
I, for one, will be pronouncing it "Throat Warbler Mangrove"
The associated EMP pulse
* will make all the WiFi Barbies hiccup
* Pebble Smartwatch with AC synchronous motor all start running backwards
* hasten return plague infested gerbils
* make Slashdot say "read rest of comment..." when is no rest of comment to read or is whitespace (oops already happened)
* make AT&T undercharge customers
* will change spelling of some words even in old dictionaries
* will change hidden embedded satanic message into incomprehensible phenomic gobblegook
* will turn chemtrail into contrail
* will contaminate Portland Reservoir with water they will drain and refill at taxpayer expense
* will do nothing out in the desert no surprise there
* will cause brain cloud
* will change Lady Gaga name to Ydal Agag and Huckleberry Finn to Fuckeberry Hinn no one will notice
* will solve discrete logarithm and knapsack problem by making people realize that despite their insolubility everyone is all ok the kids are alright so there really is no problem
* will make apocalypse crazed people reset back to factory defaults and they will walk around with default wallpaper for faces
* will reveal that we have two suns but only to drunk people
* will short out Hillary Russia reset button because it used cheap copper click disc design and was not properly shielded and we do not need woman president we need more female engineers
* will not be televised
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
For those folks who may see it 599.99 years before us, a little brighter may not fully capture the magnitude of it. Insensitive clods.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
But it's so much easier when /. links to an article with no substance
The article isn't entirely without substance. For instance, it helpfully points out, twice, that the sun is the brightest object in the sky.
The CoR books/reports are not about overpopulation per se but about scarseness of resources, polution etc.
So the main problematic zones are not random nations with a high population growth but a few specific nations that consume most resources of the planet, notable the USA.
Regarding a total collapse, I doubt any developed nation can weather off a total stop of oil, coal or other imports. Most international long distance trade is done by ships. Granted they burn stuff that does not really count as oil, but if the US don't get relevant resupplies from germany the carrier fleet is down in less than 3 month, actually 6 weeks is more correct.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Supernova will be ~1/4 the brightness of the Luna.
There, you can now skip to your loo and read your Kindle.
Overpopulation is self-adjusting. It's not pretty, famine, war and diseases comes in to play, but it is still self-adjusting.
We are not going to see the end of the world because of it.
That's not entirely true. Check out the history of Easter Island and also the many simulations and experiments
that have been done. If everyone only gets 50% of what they need then everybody dies. Yes, war, disease,
and cannibalism can help but it still might not prevent a complete collapse. More importantly, like in easter
island, the most likely outcome of overpopulation is that we screw up our ecosystem and make the world
uninhabitable by us. It's possible that a few people will survive but any simblance of civilization probably wouldn't.
I look at the sky every night, knowing the light is hundreds of years old. Half of the stars might have gone supernova already.
The life cycle of even the largest stars is still in the 10-100 million year range. The chance that one of them has exploded in the last few hundred years is tiny. Galaxy-wide we expect one supernova roughly every century so, unless you get really lucky, practically every star you can see with the naked eye has an extremely good chance of still being there...even Betelgeuse which they estimate has a 100k year lifespan remaining and is only 600 light years away. Of course if you had RTFA you would have known most of this...hope you appreciate the irony!
If only it were that simple. Vaccines aren't a magic bullet, they only give your immune system a chance to practice fighting a disease without your life being on the line. The process is fairly random though - your body throws random shit at the infection until something sticks well enough to wipe it out, and then keeps a record of what worked. As a result many people find really effective solutions and become effectively immune, but others just get a boost in their resistance - hopefully enough to keep them alive until their immune systems can find a better solution, but there are no guarantees.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
But it's so much easier when /. links to an article with no substance
The article isn't entirely without substance. For instance, it helpfully points out, twice, that the sun is the brightest object in the sky.
To be fair, that's probably specifically tailored for the slashdot audience:
"You know, that hot yellowy-white thing that warms your skin when you're walking outside?"
"Huh?"
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Continuously compound interest equation accumulates error in predicted growth rate logarithmically.
That's easy for you to say.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
> that hot yellowy-white thing that warms your skin when you're walking outside?
Please don't talk about my girlfriend that way.