Astronomers have discovered the brightest supernova ever seen, and there is a star “near” Earth thought to be a candidate for a similar explosion.
This would have its positives and negatives:
- On the positive side, it would be possible to read a book at night by the light of the dying star.
- On the negative, the proximity of the blast — 7,500 light years — could make Earth vulnerable to a gamma ray blast that could severely damage the atmosphere and biosphere, even inducing an ice age. Fortunately, the odds of the blast being pointed directly at Earth are low.
Cosmiclog notes that two movies have covered supernovas:
There was a “Supernova” movie starring James Spader and Angela Bassett, as well as a “Supernova” made-for-TV movie with Tia Carrere and Luke Perry — but neither made much of a scientific or a critical splash.
May 15th, 2007
Sunshine, about a mission to “trigger a device to save the dying sun,” will be released April 6th.
This sounds even less promising than The Core, which at least involved terra firma, but it was made by Danny Boyle and the team responsible for the excellent 28 Days Later.
Note: while the sun will die, it is not expected to do so for several billion years. If it were dying now, there is very little chance we could do anything about it: even if we set off every nuclear weapon we had, that would be a trivial disturbance compared to the sun’s ordinary energies.
February 11th, 2007
LiveScience recently offered a handy list of 10 ways to destroy the planet. The author won’t tolerate merely making it unpleasant or uninhabitable; only outright destruction is good enough. (Note: in a futurist’s attic I once saw an old 1970s document of possible megaprojects people could pursue. One of the bullet points was “Destroy the moon.”)
January 8th, 2006