Supernovas Up Close

That depends on what you call an effect. Not even a gamma ray burst will have any significant effect on closeby starts, or blow up planets. But a A supernova will quite effectively sterilize everything within a couple of lightyears. Pretty serious for any life on affected planets without the technology to protect itself, but completely irrlevant in the scope of stellar processes.

Citing Wikipedia primary sources (which is not the same as citing Wikipedia itself! ):

http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/astro-ph/0211361

I also liked this article, and, by most reliable accounts, TASS usually gets it close enough for government work:

http://www.tass-survey.org/richmond/answers/snrisks.txt

So, the short of it is that the gamma rays are the killer. And by 'killer' I mean the thing that melts off about half the ozone layer leaving us exposed to cosmic radiation. It's not enough to kill all life on Earth, but we wouldn't be happy about it. For a Type Ia: 3300 parsecs (making it the most dangerous). For a Type II: 26 parsecs.

I hope that's useful.

As an aside, does anyone recall in the Star Trek (2009) where Spock talks about the supernova threatening to destroy the galaxy? I think my brain hit the brakes so hard, only the airbag at the front of my skull saved it.

Liosse de Velishaf said:

So I've seen a few stories where supernovae have direct effects on Earth space, and I was wondering how realistic this is. Is it possible for a very close (relatively, of course) supernova to have an effect on a planet or solar system nearby?

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Absolutely. How "up close" is conjectural, and has a lot to do with the axis of rotation of the star involved. If the magnetic poles of the exploding beast are beaconed directly at a particular planetary system, even from a few thousand light years off, the gamma-ray burst could be cataclysmic. If not, you might get wow! fireworks from a few hundred light years off, but not much else of immediate impact.

The closest star to the sun which has any significant future possibility of going postal in this manner is Betelgeuse, which is about 800 light years off, as I understand. And it isn't about to happen in our lifetimes.

caw

efkelley said:

As an aside, does anyone recall in the Star Trek (2009) where Spock talks about the supernova threatening to destroy the galaxy? I think my brain hit the brakes so hard, only the airbag at the front of my skull saved it.

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Yeah, there were a ALOT of science things wrong with the new movie that I found troubling. When me and the wife left i was all, "The movie was good, but some of the science was just Poop.... Not that many people would be able to have a grand conversation about the description and leading particulars of a black hole and red matter."

I also found the supernova thing pretty irate. At some point in the movie i stopped my brain from working and just sat and watched the pretty colors.

Like he was headed to the system that was going to go nova right, and use the red matter on the star... My understanding of how a star goes supernova is it has some kind of electron mass expulsion causing the explosion?.

http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae253.cfm?CFID=18304353&CFTOKEN=71456658
^^ supernova explanation.

What the hell would that red matter have done to stop the supernova.. nothing! who knows, maybe it was the special red jello that makes stars stop going supernova FTW lol.

One drop of the red matter is enough to consume a planet, and at the end the entire (what looks like to me) 1.5 meter diameter ball of red matter is ignited... the black hole that would have created should have been Insane large if the red matter's effects where proportional...

Liosse de Velishaf said:

What about communications interference? Would a supernova be able to generate that, and over what distance?

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I would suggest for your own personal benefit reading Stephen Hawking's little known best seller.... "A brief history of time" be sure to get the one with the updated material on black holes.

I'm not an authority on black holes/supernova, but I do know enough about them to know, they will pretty much screw up anything in the local area around them when they go pooping the bed. Depending on the Size of the star, those effects are debatable.

What you'll get here may be informed opinions, but they are still just that, opinions. IMHO your questions are best asked while studying a work cited book on the subjects of novas.

This one looks like what you would really need for your research.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0691036330/?tag=absolutewrite-21

not trying to shut the thread down, but just wanted to point out that self education is your most valuable resource. I spent a year learning about M theory and i only have a glimmering touch of a grasp on the subject.

Hope this was helpful, I really hope your research the best.

that link i posted is a Princeton library book i think. Its Got to have some good stuff in it!

the hawking book is pretty short, you can sit through it in one sitting if your a fast reader, and its actually enjoyable to read. Very well written. suggested reading for Anyone interested in science!

Also if your up for it... I ordered this and It Is Awesome! I made my wife watch it with me just so she could have an idea of the stuff I talk about when I go ape Sh#! over a science fact.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B000C8STPI/?tag=absolutewrite-21

Our closest candidate for a Type Ia supernova, according to the dreaded wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IK_Pegasi

Not to derail the topic, but I agree that the Star Trek '09 writers could have done a slightly better job with their catastrophic McGuffin. I know that Star Trek has always been 'about the characters and not the science'. If that's the case, then why use science to instigate/resolve the plots? That's poor writing in my judgment. If it's opera, then let it be opera. If you want to call it science fiction, then actually READ the Scientific American. Don't just look at the cover.

according to the link, halfway down the page..

A supernova would need to be within about 26 light years of the Earth to effectively destroy the Earth's ozone layer, which would severely impact the planet's biosphere.[35]


my own thought here--> which means that at some even greater distances it would have noticeable effects on the planet without catastrophic effects...

Liosse de Velishaf said:

The main story where I got the question from had a star going supernova within twenty light-years, I believe. A real star, but not a real candidate for a nova. They had some external event cause the supernova.

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did they activate a star gate and drop it into the surface of the star???

The supernova itself cannot affect affect anything outside of itself, just as a fire can't burn something else unless it touches it. However, the effects of the fire(aka Supernova) can cause other effects. Think of it as the butterfly effect...on a really, really small scale...in terms of reactions.

JJM said:

The supernova itself cannot affect affect anything outside of itself, just as a fire can't burn something else unless it touches it.

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Supernovae as well as fire can have effects without touching something via radiation. Even fire emits radiation that can be harmful, though it's IR not gamma.