Continuing my TEOLAWKI (The End Of Life As We Know It) series, it seems the earth is again right smack dab in the middle of the line of fire:
The Earth may be in the firing line when one of the sky's most beautiful objects explodes, a Sydney astronomy expert claims.Well ain't that a swift kick in the rear? First there was the supernova and galaxy-attack scenarios. Then the predicted return of the comet Genondahwayanung, which pretty much annihilated most life in North America when it came here the first time. And then the massive gas cloud speeding toward a collision with the Milky Way! Then we learn that the earth's atmosphere may detonate. And then the asteroids. Then the black hole death stars! Then we'll be swallowed whole by the sun. I tell ya, I'm starting to think that sooner or later, every one of us is going to wind up dead.
University of Sydney astronomer Peter Tuthill discovered the elegant rotating pinwheel system, named WR104, eight years ago in the constellation Sagittarius.
It includes a highly unstable star known as a Wolf-Rayet, widely regarded by astronomers as ticking bombs – the last stop in a star’s life before a cataclysmic supernova explosion.
“When it finally explodes as a supernova, it could emit an intense beam of gamma rays coming our way”, says Dr Tuthill, whose work is published in the latest edition of the Astrophysical Journal.
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4 comments:
I doubt that cosmic events will lead to our doom. If they were such a risk, there would have been more than five major mass extinctions in the last billion years, and there hasn't been.
We have much more to fear from the next generation of weapons of mass destruction, particularly AI and self-replicating robotics. If we don't keep these weapons under control, we will regret it.
Surely you realize that my TEOLAWKI series is firmly tongue in cheek?
Haha, no, I just came here for the first time. (This is also why tone of voice helps for communication.)
Don't you think that by making a joke out of a global catastrophe, you ignore its very real possibility in the longer term? Is the possibility really so low that it's worth making a game out of?
Considering the "catastrophes" featured in the TEOLAWKI series, my answer is "yes."
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