Can any of closest stars explode and exceed brightness of sun, at least briefly?

Question

In relative terms, as observed by us.

Thank you all, people. I guess we are relatively safe.

Answer 1

Sirius A is probably the most likely, and I believe it's about 8.3 light years away.

The Crab Nebula is the result of a supernova about 1000 years ago; people were able to see it in the daytime sky.

Answer 2

You just sent me on a 1-hour definitions hunt in wikipedia....

If I did the math right (see wikipedia's entries for "absolute magnitude" and "supernova"), and if Alpha Prox, 4 light-years away, went type IA supernova, its peak brightness would equal a visual magnitude of -28.8, which is about 1.5 times brighter than the sun. Earth would be sterilized by the radiation. They also mention that is is thought that any such supernova within about 3300 light-years would have an adverse effect on us. Fortunately, our galaxy only gets one about once per 50 years, and most likely to be much further away. But they also mention the theory that the the Ordovician extinction of 450 million years ago was caused by something like this.

BTW, don't be down on supernova. They are the universe's primary source of elements heavier than oxygen. Virtually every atom in your body as well as in the planets in our solar system were created in the core of a nearby supernova that blew up maybe 10 or 12 billion years ago, and a tiny percentage of its dust was captured by our sun's gravity and formed this solar system. Lucky us, huh?

Answer 3

look up a term called "absoloute magnitued" this will help you understand brightness' to answer your question NO the closest star is proxima centuri and if it exploded today we wouldnt see it until four years later. so at that distance even if it we to go hypernova, which it couldnt because its mass is too small, but lets say it did. you would be able to see it in the day but in no way will it outshine the sun. the suns magnitude is -27 im sure if the closest star "exploded" its magnitude, from our prespective, wouldnt exceed somewhere about -5. im not sure about that number, but i know it wouldnt be anywhere as close to the brightness of the sun. hope this helps!!!!!!

Answer 4

A supernova might have an absolute magnitude of (-20), which would make it 8 billion times brighter than the sun.

The sun's apparent magnitude is -26.7. So to make the supernova's apparent magnitude equal to the same thing would require it to be at the distance d (in lightyears) from Earth.

-26.7 - (-20) = 5 log d - 7.567
d = 10^{ (-26.7 + 20 + 7.567) / 5 }
d = 1.49 lightyears

A supernova exploding a distance of 1.5 lightyears from Earth would have the same total radiant flux at Earth as the sun does; however, a higher percentage of that energy would be in the form of gamma rays.

Since there are no stars, except the sun, closer to Earth than 4 lightyears, the answer to your question is no.

Answer 5

Yes but the closest stars are like our sun and have many eons before the fuel is used up and the star implodes on itself. Any stellare explosion (of a star ) would be brighter i.e. have a higher output of electromagnetic radiation in one area of the spectrum than our sun, even if was not visible light.

Answer 6

No. There are no stars that close to us that could go supernova. I'm not even sure if they did that they would be brighter than the sun.

Answer 7

I'd assume so, but I think the stars closest to us are too young to be exploding.. unless god said "you are a Disloyal star! all you do is sit around and shine light! DIE!!" lol...