Exploding Star Could Cause Trouble

Exploding Star Could Cause Trouble

blogs.discovery.com

WR 104 is a fascinating star. Located approximately 8000 light years from Earth in the constellation of Sagittarius, it has an O-type binary partner where the interaction of both stars produce a spiral pattern of hot dust, expanding as a beautiful spiral.

WR 104 is what is known as a Wolf-Rayet star, the final phase of a massive star's life. Wolf-Rayets have short lifespans, suicidally ejecting plasma into space, producing strong stellar winds. These facts, plus some of the factors outlined in this post, make Wolf-Rayets my favorite stellar objects.

Wolf-Rayets are fiery, hot, dynamic s

(visit the link for the full news article)

I found this interesting. Given that Betelgeuse has been in the news lately. Now from what I understand, due to it's polar orientation, Betelgeuse is not a gamma ray threat. But, this one looks like it could wreak some havoc on good old planet Earth. Anyway, I just thought I would share this with you all and see what y'all think.

Enjoy!

blogs.discovery.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

How many degrees from galactic center is the WR 104 star? Especially on date Dec-21-2012?

reply to post by Aggie Man


A super blackhole could also destroy every livving thing on earth, millions of lights years from this planet if it's gamma flow were faced in our direction.

Many things to kill us off. This is just one of millions.

The article suggests that the inclination of WR104 is actually like 30 to 40 degrees out from facing directly towards us. It just looks like it is aimed right at us in the picture. I guess trying to visualize a 3d object of that magnitude in essentially 2 dimensions leads to a bit of confusion regarding the depth perception and orientation? I mean what are the odds that 80 plus percent of these wr systems are pointing right at us directly?

Good thing we have 8,000 years notice should anything happen.

reply to post by crisko


Actually we would have no notice. It would take 8000 years for the gamma rays to get here as well as the light you would see. So the instant you saw it you would already be fried.

reply to post by gravytrain


indeed.
For all we know, this thing could get us in 5000 years.

Or in 3... 2.... 1.............

nahh. too nice a day round here for the world to end..

reply to post by gravytrain


Yea, I need to stop thinking after my 4th guiness.

I was thinking more along the lines of the "boom".

It could have already exploded as we speak. The only thing is that the light will take 8000 years to reach us to confirm the speculations.

No doubt another attempt by Right Wing Republicans and Corporate Insurers and Big Pharmacutical companies to distrubt Obama Care Town Hall Meetings.

What an obvious ploy blowing up a star light years out into space. Right wing terrorists!

They have gone to far!

Originally posted by crisko
Good thing we have 8,000 years notice should anything happen.

OK brainiac - riddle me this, something is 8,000 light years away when we look at it we are looking at it how long ago?

This thing could of gone up 7,999 years ago and since nothing that we know of travels faster than light in a vacuum it is fairly safe to say we have no idea what it's status is right now... There could very well be this gamma ray burst travelling in our direction as we speak at oooh lets say 670,616,629 mph?

Who gave that guy a star? I mean really!

Originally posted by Now_Then

Originally posted by crisko
Good thing we have 8,000 years notice should anything happen.

OK brainiac - riddle me this, something is 8,000 light years away when we look at it we are looking at it how long ago?

This thing could of gone up 7,999 years ago and since nothing that we know of travels faster than light in a vacuum it is fairly safe to say we have no idea what it's status is right now... There could very well be this gamma ray burst travelling in our direction as we speak at oooh lets say 670,616,629 mph?

Who gave that guy a star? I mean really!

You need to take a chill pill bro, and read my follow up.

FYI: gamma rays do not travel at the speed of light, but close to it.

Also, read the article before ranting...

In addition to his finding that the spectral lines indicate WR 104 is tilted away from us by 30-40°

there's some doubt as to whether the Wolf-Rayet will produce a gamma-ray burst at all.

[edit on 7-8-2009 by crisko]

FYI: gamma rays do not travel at the speed of light, but close to it.

Gamma rays are electromagnetic radiation that most certainly travel at the speed of light.

Dr. Kaku is talking about this on Art Bell's Dark Matter tonight!

Found this latest article from earlier this year:

WR104 Could Scorch Earth!

crisko
Good thing we have 8,000 years notice should anything happen.

This was my first tonight too. Until I took more time to process it, and then read on.

This may be a really stupid question but how far our is our furthest space device?

Yay, thread necromancy!

When I see that it's 8000 ly away from us, I doubt that any EM radiation from that far would have any strong effect on us. There are also many doubts about different aspects of this star and the possible effects of the hypernova: en.wikipedia.org...

Newer spectroscopic data suggest that WR 104's rotational axis is more likely angled 30–40° from Earth.

And "newer" means from 2009, so it's old news.

WR 104 Won’t Kill Us After All
news.discovery.com...

An unremarkable-looking star in visible light, here it is shining brightly in infrared (2MASS all-sky survey):