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Old 03-26-2014, 07:40 PM   #22
Fred Brackin
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Default Re: [IW] Imagining Lucifer-3

Quote:
Originally Posted by robkelk View Post
Consider Beta Hydri. I don't know whether it's a supernova candidate, .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_Hydri

...has Beta Hydri being barely more massive than the Sun. It won't even make a decent Red Giant.

If you want a future supernova you need to go here....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antares

....and even at 15-18 solar masses Antares won't make a top rank boom. It is the closes tone I know of and the Wiki article implies the same.

It's also 550 ly distant which is about the same distance of the Geminga pulsar. That's a supernova remnant from about 30,000 years ago. No really big mass extinctions tied to that time period.

A parallel Earth with a supernova candidate close enough to be really dangerous is going to be highly variant in terms of local astronomy. Gurps Space 4e puts the sort of Type O stars you need at 1 in 3,000,000 in our neighborhood.
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