Now this is scary
What I want to know is why the Clinton Administration didn't do something about this years ago?
A student at Harvard University has stumbled across the terrifying spectacle of a star in our galactic backyard that is on the brink of exploding in a supernova. It is so close that if it were to blow up before moving away from us, it could wipe out life on Earth.
The system was first logged in 1993 but little attention was paid to it. Then when Harvard student Karin Sandstrom investigated HR 8210 for a college paper this year, she discovered that it is only just shy of the Chandrasekar limit - the mass at which it would be big enough to go supernova. That makes it the best and by far the closest supernova candidate discovered so far.
Seriously, this is the stuff of science fiction, and the kind of thing that could randomly snuff out life on the planet. I did read a book along these lines a few years ago; I think it was Sirius going nova, which "just" wiped out power on the planet, and I think damaned the ozone or something (the book was kind of anticlimactic). Of course, it would be absolutely impossible to protect ourselves against this, at least until we're able to move off the planet and colonize others far enough away so that the same supernova can't destroy both Earth and the colony planet. But...
Fortunately, it will take time for HR 8210 to accumulate the mass it needs [to blow]. Preliminary calculations by Rosanne di Stefano at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center suggest this may take hundreds of millions of years. By that time it will be much further away, she says, though she still needs to confirm exactly how far. "I want to be sure I'm right."
But will similar stars threaten us before then? "The fact that there's such a system so close to us suggests maybe these objects are not so rare," says Latham.
It is interesting that our position out at the edge of the galaxy, where stars are sparser, might be what has allowed us to last this long. But there have been events in our neighborhood before. This visualization from Astronomy Picture of The Day shows a supernova remnant fairly close. Probably just moving into a denser part of the cloud could have huge ramifications.
Of course, on a galactic scale, we talk in terms of vast distances and millions of years. It's probable nothing will happen for millions of years. On the other hand, it could happen tomorrow.
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