if a nearby star supernovas, how long would it take for people on earth to detect it, and after it's detected, how many years would it take for the supernova to effect the planet earth, if at all?
2006-09-24 12:49:23 · 3 answers · asked by Cracker 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
so if beatle juice(Belegeuse) blew up, we wouldn't get sh** from it but a light show. gay.
wasn't there a supernova visable from earth a few years ago? like visable with the naked eye or with a cheap telescope
2006-09-24 13:12:53 · update #1
The worse thing a near by supernova could do to the earth is to bathe it in high energy radiation for weeks on end.
The gases from it would have no effect on earth as they would be too far away to do any damage.
I'm sure that our solar system has passed through the gas from a supernova in the past. And it is important to realize that the elements of our planet CAME from a supernova. So we are literally the results from a supernova. The elements above iron on the periodic table all come from supernovas.
2006-09-24 12:57:07 · answer #1 · answered by Alan Turing 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Typically the gases move at a sizeable fraction of the speed of light. Not to worry -- the closest supernova candidate (Belegeuse) is about 1500 light years away, and at that distance the radiation would be so weak that it would have no effect on Earth (other than maybe making the Northern Lights more spectacular than usual).
2006-09-24 20:01:48 · answer #2 · answered by stevewbcanada 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Betelgeuse is only 425 light years away, not 1500. That is only 1/3 the distance Steve mentioned, and therefore (per the inverse square law of light) the radiation will be 9 times stronger than Steve thought.
2006-09-25 08:14:33 · answer #3 · answered by sparc77 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋