mycatharsis.com

It may look hypnotic, I know I’m starting to feel very, very sleepy. But to an astronomer, this spiral pattern says that we’re looking directly down the poles of this about to die star. Unlike Eta Carinae, which, while similarly close to ‘blowing’, doesn’t appear to have it’s poles pointed in our direction. And when it does, the earth could see a burst of gamma rays unlike any it’s experienced in at least a few hundred million years. We probably wouldn’t see the actual event, as a gamma ray burst might only last 5 seconds at max. Many don’t even last a full second. But the damage would be incredible, possibly burning off the entire ozone layer and starting a mass extinction. All the more incredible because this star is 8000 LIGHT-YEARS away! That translates to 47,027,998,500,000,000 miles away. (by the way, google DOES translate light years to miles, very cool!) 47 quadrillion miles away, and the power of a GRB is still enough to destroy a planet. Mind blowing.

If you’ve ever had even a passing interest in astronomy, this is the time to get interested again. I picked up a telescope last year with my tax return and have been amazed at the quality of astronomical news available since I’ve rekindled that interest. Of course we all know the Hubble scope, but theres also stuff like the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and a whole slew of other space-based telescopes. I would think this has to be one of the most exciting times in history for an astronomy fan to be alive. And with even more powerful telescopes such as the James Webb Space Telescope on the way, it’s only going to get more incredible.

Two spirals that could be twins apparently interacting, in the rectangle of this shot …

zoomed into full resolution … .

Giving the series name “Mega Disasters” all new meaning.   Can you imagine the power necessary to cause a mass extinction from 6000 LIGHT YEARS away?  Actually, I can’t myself, but it’s gotta be a lot! Enough to make all our nukes going off at once look like a fart in a hurricane.  And that, for a brief moment, that gamma ray burst outshines the entirety of our cosmos, that is even more mind boggling.  I think that’s why astronomy is so fascinating, just about everything in it, just boggles the mind!

The Daily Galaxy has an interesting discussion about Fermi’s Paradox, asking why, in a universe so vast and numerous as our own, with estimates for life elsewhere seemingly so abundant, why don’t we find any evidence of this life? This leads to some pretty wildly interesting theories , such as perhaps a planet broadcasting it’s existence to the universe is bad for it’s long term health! Maybe it draws conquering aliens to them, or perhaps it’s a symptom of a larger problem, such as broadcasting a signal being a sign of a sufficiently advanced technological society, a society so advanced it usually creates their own future masters, such as nanites that take over society and enslave it’s creators, or a society that wipes itself out thru nuclear winter, etc.

Meaning the number rocks out there that could pose a danger to us just shot way up. I wish we would spend more money on finding and cataloging all the asteroids out there that could hit our planet. It would be such a small investment, money-wise, but could reap such huge returns. True, it’s rather unlikely an asteroid that can do major damage will hit us anytime soon, but the effects if one did would be simply catastrophic, and how shamed should we be (assuming ANY of us are still around) if we had the technology to find it and stop it, but chose not to spend a rather small amount of money to do so?

I hate to try to connect this to politics, but that seems to be what I do, so here goes. The shame is that we’ve embraced such a nasty form of ‘gotcha’ politics that no one dare bring this kind of topic that’s outside the mainstream of public consciousness for fear of being ridiculed. Barack Obama makes one statement praising how Reagan moved the country into a new era, and Hillary Clinton says ‘gotcha’, and runs ads saying he praised Reagan! So politicians learn to keep their unique ideas to themselves, afraid of having their words twisted and careers ruined.

So yes, the small size of the Tunguska asteroid is another example of how we’re harmed by ‘gotcha’ politics! Sorry, I must have gotten up on the wrong side of bed this morning …

A supermassive black hole at the heart of galaxy 3C321 is bombarding it’s neighbor, a mere 20,000 light years away (about the distance for us to the center of our own galaxy), with massive amounts of radiation that would destroy the atmospheres of any planets unlucky enough to be caught in it’s wake. The galaxy is 1.4 Billion light years away, so we are watching this galaxy’s ancient past. I wonder what’s going on there at this moment? I can’t help but wonder if we’re watching the extinction of one, or even many, ancient civilizations? Barring the Stargate TV series being a documentary instead of science fiction, it seems it would be extremely hard for even vastly advanced civilizations to escape what seems a certain death. Are there beings in that galaxy right now unaware of this cosmic catastrophe that killed off their ancestors? Are we watching merely an interesting cosmic phenomenon, or a snuffing out of billions, or even trillions, of lives? The mind boggles ….