Earth 'to be wiped out' by supernova explosion

[mickw]

The star, called T Pyxidis, is set to self-destruct in an explosion called a supernova with the force of 20 billion billion billion megatons of TNT.
Although the star is thought to be around 3,260 light-years away – a fairly short distance in galactic terms – the blast from the thermonuclear explosion could strip away the Earth's ozone layer, the scientists said.

More:   http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/6940111/Earth-to-be-wiped-out-by-supernova-explosion.html

We're doomed, doomed I tells ya 

Thanks Doug for the link 

[MarkS]

Good thing its in a southern hemisphere constellation so our antipodean cousins will be gamma irradiated and not us

http://www.physorg.com/news182067005.html

[mickw]

antipodean cousins will be gamma irradiated

Will anyone notice.........................
Will anyone care..............................

[mickw]

Just how Earth survived the process of its birth without suffering an early demise by falling into the sun has been something of a mystery to astronomers, but a new model has figured out what protected our planet when it was still a vulnerable, baby world.

In short, temperature differences in the space around the sun, 4.6 billion years ago, caused Earth to migrate outward as much as gravity was trying to pull it inward, and so the fledgling world found equilibrium in what we now know to be a very habitable orbit.

More:   http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/earth-survive-birth-aas-100107.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+spaceheadlines+(SPACE.com+Headline+Feed)&utm_content=Google+UK

[Rick]

Hubble Maps 3-D Structure of Ejected Material Around Erupting Star

After 45 years of peaceful bliss, the nova T Pyxidis erupted again in 2011. Astronomers took advantage of a flash of light accompanying the blast to map the ejecta from previous outbursts surrounding the double-star system. The team used NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to trace the light as it sequentially illuminated different parts of the disk, a phenomenon called a light echo. Contrary to some predictions, the astronomers were somewhat surprised to find that the ejecta stayed in the vicinity of the star and formed a disk of debris. The discovery suggests that material continues expanding outward along the system's orbital plane, but it does not escape the system.

More: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2013/21/full/