Originally Posted by cometcatcher

Originally Posted by ScouseD

Originally Posted by Phooey

Originally Posted by cometcatcher

Well ScouseD, let's just hope Betelgeuse went belly up oh, say... 630 years ago?

Then we've got another 10 years to wait. (it's Approx 640 light years away)

I’ve been waiting for Betelgeuse to go supernova since I was a kid, and to be honest I’m getting a little impatient…

The event would certainly be spectacular, but again given the vast distances involved nothing to be overly concerned about. Taking a simple linear approach the energy and matter densities would follow the inverse square law on their way towards us, meaning that again the effects would be negligible, apart that is from a humongous light in the sky for quite a while. That would certainly mess up natural cycles, but there isn’t anything in the fossil record to show that these events, which must have happened in the past, resulted in any sort of catastrophe.

Quite, but just think of the nebula....

I know :D It would certainly be something worth seeing!

Taking the Crab Nebula as an example, the nebula would be around 10 light years across after about 1000 years, so nothing to worry about, even if the bang is far bigger.

ScouseD, why do you have to wreck a perfectly good disaster call? It means that we will not be able to spark up the outrage spaceship to go and sort this out as you say it won't happen.

I was looking forward to a bit of Armageddon.

Originally Posted by ScouseD

Originally Posted by cometcatcher

Originally Posted by ScouseD

Originally Posted by Phooey

Originally Posted by cometcatcher

Well ScouseD, let's just hope Betelgeuse went belly up oh, say... 630 years ago?

Then we've got another 10 years to wait. (it's Approx 640 light years away)

I’ve been waiting for Betelgeuse to go supernova since I was a kid, and to be honest I’m getting a little impatient…

The event would certainly be spectacular, but again given the vast distances involved nothing to be overly concerned about. Taking a simple linear approach the energy and matter densities would follow the inverse square law on their way towards us, meaning that again the effects would be negligible, apart that is from a humongous light in the sky for quite a while. That would certainly mess up natural cycles, but there isn’t anything in the fossil record to show that these events, which must have happened in the past, resulted in any sort of catastrophe.

Quite, but just think of the nebula....

I know :D It would certainly be something worth seeing!

Taking the Crab Nebula as an example, the nebula would be around 10 light years across after about 1000 years, so nothing to worry about, even if the bang is far bigger.

Yes, I need those 10 (very ish) years to save up for a nice 20 inch Meade

Originally Posted by putteesinmyhands

...and what about the bang? If sound doesn't travel through a vacuum, will it be a silent explosion? Without a bang, there's be no blast, so a bit less to worry about.

The explosion itself will certainly make a noise, but it will only be heard actually within the event. Any elastic medium can carry sound (air, brick, steel etc.) and the matter involved in the event will provide just such a medium. With an event so close it should be possible to measure the sound waves as they travel through the gasses and learn quite a lot from them.

Originally Posted by Auld-Yin

ScouseD, why do you have to wreck a perfectly good disaster call? It means that we will not be able to spark up the outrage spaceship to go and sort this out as you say it won't happen.

I was looking forward to a bit of Armageddon.

Damn it! You are quite correct, sir. To the Outrage Spaceship, or an Outrage Spacehopper if that’s all you have. There MUST be a way of blaming this event on immigration, New Labour, Call-me-Dave etc. etc.

Originally Posted by Auld-Yin

ScouseD, why do you have to wreck a perfectly good disaster call? It means that we will not be able to spark up the outrage spaceship to go and sort this out as you say it won't happen.

I was looking forward to a bit of Armageddon.

AY, you are obviously far too young to remember the NCO NBC test in the early 1950s. The written answer to the first question was always:
shit bricks
build a wall
hide behind it.

This gem covers all eventualities and is as pertinent now as it was then.

Right. Converting light years into sensible units, the distance is 32,600,000,000,000,000 km. The surface area of a sphere at this radius is 1.356e34 square kilometres. This gives 1.5 tons of TNT per square kilometre on the earth's surface.

OOOH!

The National Shell Filling Factory at Chilwell was destroyed in an explosion of eight tons of TNT on 1 July 1918. I'd estimate that the area over which the explosives were stored would be about a tenth of a square kilometre, so that would equate to 80 tons per square kilometre.

Hmmm. I'd better wrap the crockery up quite well. And I'll probably open the windows, just in case.

Originally Posted by putteesinmyhands

Right. Converting light years into sensible units, the distance is 32,600,000,000,000,000 km. The surface area of a sphere at this radius is 1.356e34 square kilometres. This gives 1.5 tons of TNT per square kilometre on the earth's surface.

OOOH!

The National Shell Filling Factory at Chilwell was destroyed in an explosion of eight tons of TNT on 1 July 1918. I'd estimate that the area over which the explosives were stored would be about a tenth of a square kilometre, so that would equate to 80 tons per square kilometre.

Hmmm. I'd better wrap the crockery up quite well. And I'll probably open the windows, just in case.

If you are going to play around with those metric thingys I'm going home because they never work properly and you will only cause an accident.
Think Imperial. You know it makes sense and it's not illegal either.

Talking of things armageddony, this is a pretty good Youtube animation of a Ceres/Vesta sized asteroid smacking into us:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlF8APEkh-E

Originally Posted by putteesinmyhands

Right. Converting light years into sensible units, the distance is 32,600,000,000,000,000 km. The surface area of a sphere at this radius is 1.356e34 square kilometres. This gives 1.5 tons of TNT per square kilometre on the earth's surface.

OOOH!

The National Shell Filling Factory at Chilwell was destroyed in an explosion of eight tons of TNT on 1 July 1918. I'd estimate that the area over which the explosives were stored would be about a tenth of a square kilometre, so that would equate to 80 tons per square kilometre.

Hmmm. I'd better wrap the crockery up quite well. And I'll probably open the windows, just in case.

Again though, the interstellar gas and dust will absorb almost all of the resultant matter, as seen with other such events. Also the Sun’s considerable outward radiation needs to be taken into account, and our atmosphere will take up almost all of the tiny remainder.