Posted on 03/05/2008 1:07:09 PM PST by Squidpup
Earth could be in for a neighborhood dispute with a death star, according to an Australian astronomer.
A spectacular rotating pinwheel system just down the astronomical road from Earth — 8,000 light years away — includes an unstable Wolf-Rayet star that could explode.
Eight years ago, WR104 was discovered in the constellation Sagittarius by Sydney University astronomer Peter Tuthill.
A Wolf-Rayet star is the last step on the way to a supernova — the explosion of a star at the end of its life.
Images from the Mauna Kea in Hawaii telescope show that every eight months the two stars at the centre of the pinwheel orbit each other, leaving a trail of hot gas, carbon and dust.
"Viewed from Earth, the rotating tail appears to be laid out on the sky in an almost perfect spiral," Tuthill said. "It could only appear like that if we are looking nearly exactly down on the axis of the binary system."
Tuthill and his team worry this box-seat view might put us in the firing line when the system finally explodes.
"Sometimes, supernovae like the one that will one day destroy WR104 focus their energy into a narrow beam of very destructive gamma-ray radiation along the axis of the system," he warns. "If such a 'gamma-ray burst' happens, we really do not want Earth to be in the way."
Even a short gamma-ray burst at supernova strength could zap away half the Earth's ozone layer, drastically increasing the amount of deadly space radiation that penetrates our atmosphere.
One leading theory blames the Ordovician mass extinction of 443 million years ago on such an interstellar gamma-ray burst.
There's no need to move planets just yet, however, because Tuthill is uncertain whether Earth is precisely on WR104's axis.
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(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
If Clinton had the power to do so, there is no doubt she would explode the thing unless she was given the Presidency.
Anyone who believe such stuff is silly, they don’t know the slightest thing about deep space objects, nothing at all, yet they report it as fact, they aren’t even sure what Pluto is, honestly, all this deep space “science” is pure bunk.
Worry about it 8,000 years after it happens...
Well we only have 8000 years to figure out what we should do. Course it may have gone nova 7999 years ago and we won’t know about it till next year. In any case there isn’t anything we can do anyway.
Great, something else to worry about.
Isn’t waxy build-up, getting my kids through college, Hilary-Billary back in the WH and moslem terrorists enough?
The red giant Beutelguese is only 600 light years away. When that one goes off, you’ll be able to get a sunburn in the middle of the night.
What I want to know is...how did SUVs cause this?
Uh . . If it is relevant to us and the next generations of several thousand years, it has ALREADY exploded. (8,000 light years away!)
Which could be tomorrow. Remember, we’re seeing light that is 8000 years old. 7999 years ago, the star *could have* exploded, and we’d find out about it in a couple months.
Not that there’s anything to worry about!
“Even a short gamma-ray burst at supernova strength could zap away half the Earth’s ozone layer, drastically increasing the amount of deadly space radiation that penetrates our atmosphere.”
Big deal. We wiped out half the ozone layer with spray cans.
Well by god let just go up there and investigate this thing!
which could have been 7999.998 years ago.
“there isn’t anything we can do anyway.”
We could sacrifice Al Gore to the gods.
It could have already bursted.
The gamma burst could already be on it’s way.
We wouldn’t know it until it arrived, at the speed of light, along with any warning indications.
Could be next millennium, century, next decade, next year, next month, next week, tomorrow.
Eat. Drink. Be merry. Leave a big carbon footprint.
Tomorrow we fry.
OK, give them a bigger research grant . . . in 8,000 years!
The stuff tin-foil hats are made of.
But if it is 8,000 light years away, we are viewing it as it existed 8,000 years ago.
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