Wondering if we should be worried.

Yes, there are lots of things to worry about, but here is one that most people don’t think about or don’t know about. I am thinking about something that could be very dangerous to life on Earth, an exploding star.

Oh, but you say stars, except for our sun, are way far away. Well, that is a true statement, but let me tell you the story of The Crab Nebula or M1 as Messier described it.

M1 happened not too long ago. Back in 1054 the Chinese recorded a new brilliant star that could even be seen in the daytime for a few weeks and dimmed after a couple of years. This was the light caused by a humongous explosion when a star ended its life about 6500 years earlier. Yep, took a long time for that light to reach Earth, so it must have been a huge bang.
That exploding star left a huge nebula, called the crab nebula. Here is a picture of what it looks like now (actually we are looking back 6500 years):


This nebula is expanding at 930 miles a second!! Do the math. In other words, it expands 30 billion miles per year, right? Dang, I hope it slows down before it gets here, what you think?

As it is now seen in the heavens, it is 10 light years across. It is actually a beautiful telescopic sight and presents no known danger.

What I think about is that it is 10 light years across. The brightest star in the sky, Sirius, is about 10 light years away and there are a dozen stars a lot closer than Sirius. What would happen if one of those went nova (BANG), and grew to 10 light years across. We sure wouldn’t need headlights to drive at night.

Actually, the deadly particles released by a nova even a lot further away than Sirius would cause havoc here on Earth. Betelgeuse, a red giant star is on its last stages of life. It is a lot further away, but closer than anything else that ever went bump in the night.

Now, sleep tight tonight. I hope this will not cause you any night mares (grin) (grin) (grin).
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
OK, to ease your mind some, most of the close by stars are too small to explode. For a nova to happen, a star has to be pretty large, and its gravity must become much stronger than the outward force caused by its nuclear fire in the center of the star. Then it collapses on itself and explodes. Most stars are like our sun and will just puff up, throw off layers of gas, and finally end up a glowing cinder.

Of course, when our sun does that, it will be the end of the Earth as we know it and definitely the end of all life. Our sun may get large enough to swallow Earth. If not, it will either burn it to a cinder or kick it out of the solar system. By that time, we should have already visited other planets or created space stations that are self sustained that we can live in. Who knows if human life can exist for that long without doing itself in.