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Scientists Predict Star Collision Visible To The Naked Eye In 2022 (npr.org)

Posted by msmash on from the looking-forward dept.

Scientists predict that a pair of stars in the constellation Cygnus will collide in 2022, give or take a year, creating an explosion in the night sky so bright that it will be visible to the naked eye. From a report on NPR: If it happens, it would be the first time such an event was predicted by scientists. Calvin College professor Larry Molnar and his team said in a statement that two stars are orbiting each other now and "share a common atmosphere, like two peanuts sharing a single shell." They predict those two stars, jointly called KIC 9832227, will eventually "merge and explode ... at which time the star will increase its brightness ten thousand fold becoming one of the brighter stars in the heavens for a time." That extra-bright star is called a red nova. They recently presented their research at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Grapevine, Texas.

25 of 126 comments (clear)

  1. that cant be right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    aren't they really predicting that the light from the stars colliding will reach us in 2022?

    1. Re:that cant be right by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 5, Informative

      Yes, but since they can't please normal people and pedants, they've gone with the description that both can easily understand.

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      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  2. Re:If its visible here in 2022 by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Not in all reference frames.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  3. Long ago.. by slashkitty · · Score: 2

    While MOST stars you see at night are actually very close, these stars are about 1800 light-years away. So, yeah, the collision happened long ago and we are only soon able to see it.

    --
    -- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
    1. Re:Long ago.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      ...and naturally, slashdot is 1800 years too late on reporting the event :-/

  4. Re:"will collide in 2022" by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 2

    They collided, or didn't collide, 1,800 years ago ( http://www.vox.com/science-and... )

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  5. Re:If its visible here in 2022 by Fragnet · · Score: 3, Funny

    It takes zero time for the light from the event to reach us in its frame of reference. According to the photons the event is zero distance away. So I'm not sure it makes any sense to talk about when or where the event happened.

  6. Re:"will collide in 2022" by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 2

    Actually 1,795 years ago (before a smart ass fixes my post)

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  7. Goddamn scientists by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 3, Funny

    Goddamn scientists, always predictin' shit and figurin' stuff out.

    Selfish bastards, at this rate there won't be any new discoveries left for the next generation of scientists to make.

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    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
  8. Re:If its visible here in 2022 by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It takes zero time for the light from the event to reach us in its frame of reference. According to the photons the event is zero distance away.

    I interviewed several of the photons tomorrow and they called bullshit on your concept of zero distance.

    --
    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
  9. Here is a much better article about it by Topwiz · · Score: 2

    This one actually explains that the expected explosion occurred sometime in the third century since the star is 1800 light years away. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sci...

  10. It is neither right nor wrong... by SeattleLawGuy · · Score: 2

    Yes, but since they can't please normal people and pedants, they've gone with the description that both can easily understand.

    Exactly. The idea that something 1800 light years away "happened" at time X is kind of meaningless anyway, because our colloquial measurements of time (things like "1800 years ago" or "the third century") are dependent on being stuck in our local gravity well. It's like you get a call from the White House and your kid says "Don't you really mean you got a call from the first floor?"

    Well, sure. The first floor of not-your-house. It's a categorization that doesn't make sense in the context of the real universe.

    --
    Real lawyers write in C++
  11. Re:If its visible here in 2022 by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Funny

    You're begging for a "your mom is so fat" joke here, hope you're aware of that!

    Or is that ``a "your mom is so fat here" joke''?

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  12. Re:It *can* be right... by Wulf2k · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If we send somebody to Mars and are listening to their final screams of agony as they realize there was a conversion error between Metric and Imperial, are they dying right now or have they been dead for 13 minutes?

  13. Re:It *can* be right... by Black.Shuck · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's a bit late to do something about it in either case, is it not?

  14. What Einstein figured out... by number6x · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What Einstein already figured out is that as you approach the speed of light, in your reference, time slows down. If you reach the speed of light, time stands still.

    What Einstein already figured out is what the post you replied to is alluding to. For a photon, all time is now. To the photons reaching us from this event, it is exactly the same time as when they were created. To a photon, no time passes between when it is emitted and when it is absorbed. This is one of the most spectacular implications of relativity.

    Q: What is a photon's favorite song?

    A: The Smiths; 'How Soon Is Now?"

    1. Re:What Einstein figured out... by thrich81 · · Score: 2

      "What Einstein already figured out is that as you approach the speed of light, in your reference, time slows down" -- this is not quite correct. Time is as measured by an observer and the clocks in his co-moving reference frame ( let's stay with Special Relativity to avoid the complications of curved space-time). When the observer looks at any processes in a reference frame moving in relation to his, he sees those other clocks as running slow, BUT another observer in the other reference frame sees the original observer's clocks as running slow, too. Nobody sees their own clocks as running slow. The apparent paradox is resolved by remembering that the two observers don't measure the same distances either. The good example is the muons generated by cosmic rays in the upper atmosphere which are seen at the earth's surface, even though their rest frame half lives are too short for them to survive all the way to the surface. As observed by us at the surface the muon half-lives have been lengthened, their time has "slowed down", but as seen by the muon, it's half life is always the same, but because of the relative speed between it and the earth, it observes that the distance from creation to the surface is relativistically shortened so it has plenty of time before decay to travel that short distance. I don't want to speculate much about the photon traveling at the speed of light -- but to abuse the math -- they don't age as observed by anyone else, but any distance they go is relativistically shortened to zero from their reference -- I'm uneasy about that explanation.

    2. Re: What Einstein figured out... by ArylAkamov · · Score: 2

      We're at now-now.

      But what happened to then?

      We passed it

      When?

      Just now!

      https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=...

    3. Re:What Einstein figured out... by Zak3056 · · Score: 2

      Q: What is a photon's favorite song?

      A: The Smiths; 'How Soon Is Now?"

      Werner von Heisenberg gets pulled over for speeding. The state trooper looks at him and says, "Dr. Heisenberg, do you have any idea how fast your were going?" Heisenberg says, "No, but I know exactly where I am."

      --
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    4. Re:What Einstein figured out... by sh00z · · Score: 2

      What Einstein already figured out is that as you approach the speed of light, in your reference, time slows down. If you reach the speed of light, time stands still.

      What Einstein already figured out is what the post you replied to is alluding to. For a photon, all time is now. To the photons reaching us from this event, it is exactly the same time as when they were created. To a photon, no time passes between when it is emitted and when it is absorbed. This is one of the most spectacular implications of relativity.

      (giving up my mod points to comment here) That article drops its most significant qualifying phrase halfway through the explanation, which leads to a 100% incorrect conclusion. That phrase is relative to an observer back on Earth. In Earth's frame of reference, the time experienced by the photon is zero. In the photon's frame of reference, time is proceeding normally. It "sees" that the distance to its origin is zero at time zero, and that the origin is receding at a speed of c as time passes. And that time passes normally. Of course, the theory then goes into the actual weirdness of relativity, which is that in the photon's frame of reference, time has stopped at its origin.

  15. Re:It *can* be right... by buchner.johannes · · Score: 2

    13 minutes

    What's the imperial equivalent unit of time measure?

    1 tea.

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  16. Re:That's very bright! by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 4, Informative

    Nice try at being pedantic, but you failed.

    -fold: a native English suffix meaning “of so many parts,” or denoting multiplication by the number indicated by the stem or word to which the suffix is attached

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  17. Re:"will collide in 2022" by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 2

    I demand precision to the nearest day!

    Okay. 655671 days.

    Note that the above number is precise, but not necessarily accurate. There IS a difference....

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  18. Re:How bright will it be? by tinkerton · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It will temporarily be about as bright as Polaris, the Pole Star. So visible to the naked eye, but not one of the brightest ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... )

  19. Re:That's very bright! by jsrjsr · · Score: 2

    Many.