WR-104 Binary Star...

[Admiral_Young]

I was listening to Coast To Coast AM and Art Bell was the guest host and interviewing Dr. Michio Kaku a prominent theorically physistic who was on promoting his latest book (The Physics of Impossible things) and at one point during their discussion brought up the Binary Star WR-104 which is approximetly 8,000 light years away from Earth in the Sagitarious constellation and in the process of going supernova. The point is that there are some scientists who belive that when that event does occur (Dr. Kaku pointed out that it already might have) the resulting explosion should send shockwaves of gamma bursts and that we were in the "crosshairs". They brought it up because they were discussing the viability of the Death Star's superlaser blowing up Aldderan and Dr. Kaku suggested that this was the scientific equivalent. You can look it up...I found the wikipedia article and there are links to montioring websites where you can download updates and such, apprently we're on a 16 degree celesitial axis with it and thus it could hit us or miss us. What do you all think about it? I tell you I couldn't sleep for a few hours after listening to this...

 

[SeerSGB]

This is why sci-fi/fantasy rarely excites me, beyond mere entertainment. The real world is so much fucking cooler, and scarier than anything Hollywood can cook up. WR-104 is one of those things is made up of equally parts "Man, that's really fucking cool" and "Ah, shit we're totally screwed."

 

[Admiral_Young]

Yeah you said it perfectly...like I said after I heard this last night I was freaked out for a good two or three hours afterwards thinking about it. It at least makes you think about the possibilities that are out there and that we're not really "safe".

 

[Bill Morris]

Well, warp-capable species in that region of space probably won't have to travel 8,000 light-years to find suitable new homes.

 

[Meredith]

I like Coast to Coast, there have been some good shows, My favorite scientist is Mr. Freeman who calls from time to time, he works at some weird lab in New Mexico and has some interesting stories.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liKV4Ij8LtU

 

[K'riq Sa]

I'll be ready....

I got a couple of these left. their flying outta here like hotcakes....







subtrifudgely,

K'riq Sa
Minister of the Church of the Post Nasel Drip

 

[Admiral_Young]

I'm afraid the aluminum pirate hats won't help you against a gammy ray burst...

 

[yammerhead]

I can only hope that if the gamma rays hit us, I will become the Human Torch.

 

[SeerSGB]

I can only hope that if the gamma rays hit us, I will become the Human Torch.

See now, I don't know whether to laugh or cry, cause you know some dumbass out there read about this star and the burst and thought "Cool...dudes, we can be the Fantastic Four!" And was serious when he said it.

 

[K'riq Sa]

I'm afraid the aluminum pirate hats won't help you against a gammy ray burst...

How about an aluminum one of these.....?

cosmically,

K'riq Sa
Minister of the Church of the 10th Planet

 

[Maurice]

Let's see...8,000 light years is 1/12th the width of the galaxy away, and how much would this radiation spread in a sphere out from this point...

Given this, "crosshair" is a pretty poor analogy. Ground zero barely qualifies at 8K LY.

 

[Lindley]

The gamma ray burst isn't spherical, it's directed along the star's polar axis. And Earth is pretty well targeted according to the article on this which popped up a few weeks back.

What this means is that something bad may or may not happen sometime in the next 8 millenia.

 

[M'Sharak]

^ Pretty much what I remember reading, though some of the subsequent posts in the same thread contained links to material which got more and more into tabloid & tinfoil hat territory (with much blinky and eye-hurtful color clash.)

 

[K'riq Sa]

^ Pretty much what I remember reading, though some of the subsequent posts in the same thread contained links to material which got more and more into tabloid & tinfoil hat territory (with much blinky and eye-hurtful color clash.)

Hey don't look at me... I just call 'em like I see 'em...







sophmorically,

K'riq Sa
Minister of the Church of the Unhappy Clones

 

[Noname Given]

I can only hope that if the gamma rays hit us, I will become the Human Torch.

You mean Hulk...the Human Torch (of Fantastic Four fame) was created via exposure to Cosmic Rays).

 

[ZeNd]

Link? And if it the gamma rays hit us, does it mean earth only has 8000 years left?

 

[Verteron]

The gamma ray burst isn't spherical, it's directed along the star's polar axis. And Earth is pretty well targeted according to the article on this which popped up a few weeks back.

What this means is that something bad may or may not happen sometime in the next 8 millenia.

No, because we're viewing the Star as it was 8000 years ago. It's perfectly possible the star may have gone Supernova and emitted its GRB 7900 years ago, which means we'd see it arrive in the next century! We just can't see that this has happened yet, because the light currently reaching us is obviously 100 years older still.

So essentially we're seeing events in "real time" as if we were standing right next to the star, just 8000 years after they happen. It's quite possible the Gamma Rays have been "coming right at us" for some time already.

It's estimated a GRB at 1000ly distance sending its energy straight at Earth would be like a 100,000 megaton atomic bomb going off, which sounds bad, but is not as deadly as you think. Sure, it'd mean the end for higher-order mammals like ourselves, but life on Earth is unlikely to be completely extinguished.

At 8000ly, the effects you'd be looking at would be serious depletion of the ozone layer by up to 30% (our own ozone holes represent depletions of around 5% in isolated areas), which would take around 50 years to recover from. Problems might include global cooling caused by upper-atmosphere nitrogen reforming as nitrogen dioxide (smog).

However it's not clear whether WR-104 will produce a GRB, and even so, it's not entirely clear how accurate it is to say "we're right in its sights". I'm not losing too much sleep over it.

 

[Ariadne]

^^ There's not much we can do about it anyway, even if we were worried.

*burries head in sand*

 

[Lindley]

The gamma ray burst isn't spherical, it's directed along the star's polar axis. And Earth is pretty well targeted according to the article on this which popped up a few weeks back.

What this means is that something bad may or may not happen sometime in the next 8 millenia.

No, because we're viewing the Star as it was 8000 years ago. It's perfectly possible the star may have gone Supernova and emitted its GRB 7900 years ago, which means we'd see it arrive in the next century!

So like I said, sometime in the next 8 millenia.

It's estimated a GRB at 1000ly distance sending its energy straight at Earth would be like a 100,000 megaton atomic bomb going off, which sounds bad, but is not as deadly as you think. Sure, it'd mean the end for higher-order mammals like ourselves, but life on Earth is unlikely to be completely extinguished.

Granted that's a worst-case scenario. The destruction might be very localized, limited to merely our own galaxy.

 

[Verteron]

So like I said, sometime in the next 8 millenia..

Sorry if I misunderstood what you were saying there.

I read what you wrote as you saying there was some connection between the star being 8000ly away and the GRB potentially occurring in the next 8000 years.

If you were, that's not correct; the GRB could reach Earth any time between now and an undetermined point in the future, depending on whether the GRB occurred 7000 years ago (meaning it will reach us in 1000 years), 1000 years ago (meaning it gets here in 7000 years), right now (8000 years to go) or in 1000 years (9000 years), etc. In all of these situations we would not have seen the GRB yet in our telescopes, because the photons we're observing is 8000 years old, so the GRB is quite capable of "creeping up" on us and arriving with no warning whatsoever.

In any case, if you think in terms of special relativity, it's actually pretty pointless to discuss what might be happening from the perspective of a remote clock, because it's nonsensical to think about anything except from the perspective of being a remote observer some distance away from an event and information reaching you at the speed of light.

Granted that's a worst-case scenario. The destruction might be very localized, limited to merely our own galaxy.

Quite true -- sorry if I was unclear, this is indeed the worst case scenario if the GRB happens to be aimed 'straight at us'. If it was, then nothing else in the Galaxy would be affected, it would just be bad news for life in our Solar system.