Comments

You must log in or register to comment.

gentlemancaller2000 t1_irkimmx wrote

What are the choices, other than Earth is vaporized and all life on Earth ceases to exist?

14

CocoLog1 OP t1_irkj58d wrote

Yeah this is what i thought, for whatever reason he didn't think it would totally get destroyed

2

ccc888 t1_irkse5o wrote

Your friend is a moron. The entire solar system would be gone

9

CocoLog1 OP t1_irlaovm wrote

I know. He was trying to back it up with "facts and data" most likely provided from false websites

3

Krii8 t1_irlrblm wrote

Actually. There are systems found in which planets seem to have survived their star's super nova. Planets have been found orbiting pulsars/neutron stars. They're just ultra burned to a crisp. Now, it is possible they all started orbiting after it happened. But who knows how common that is.

You might actually find interesting how the first exoplanet was found

1

Devil-sAdvocate t1_irkmpn9 wrote

It won't. (Unless maybe another of the right type of star perfectly enters our system, and they became a close binary system*. But only after ours becomes a white dwarf in muti-billions of years.

Our star will grow to be larger — That's when the sun will become a red giant. It will be so large that it will envelope the inner planets, probably including Earth. Probably because astronomers have noted that as the sun expands, the orbit of the planet's is likely to move farther out from the sun losing mass. As little as just a .15 AU difference may mean earths continued survival.

If earth does get enveloped inside the sun's atmosphere, the Earth will collide with particles of gas. Its orbit will decay, and it will spiral inward. But the Earth will become uninhabitable much sooner than that from a runaway greenhouse effect that is similar to what turned Venus into the terrible hothouse it is today.

After becoming a red giant, then the hydrogen in that outer core will deplete, leaving an abundance of helium. That element will then fuse into heavier elements, like oxygen and carbon, in reactions that don't emit as much energy. Once all the helium disappears, the forces of gravity will take over, and the sun will shrink into a white dwarf. Over a very long time, a white dwarf will cool and its material will begin to crystallize, starting with the core. The star's low temperature means it will no longer emit significant heat or light, and it will become a cold black dwarf.

But if it did go supernova while we are still here, radiation, lots and lots of radiation. (credit to AlignedMonkey)

This is not so good for our ozone. Scientists theorize that the Earth's ozone layer would be damaged if a star less than 50 light-years away went supernova. The sun is about 8.3 light-minutes from Earth.

If the Sun went supernova it would have a much more dramatic effect. We would have no ozone. With no ozone, skin-cancer cases would skyrocket. All living things would suffer from severe radiation burns, unless they were underground or in protective suits. Plants would fry, animals would fry...we would all die.

However, if the Sun went supernova the loss of ozone would be the least of our concerns. There would be no escape. On the side of Earth that faced the Sun, the explosion would boil away the surface of the Earth at hundreds of meters per second. People on the night side wouldn’t do much better. Scattered light would heat Earth to lethal temperatures. Scientists estimate that the planet would be roughly 15 times hotter than the surface of the Sun currently is. Far above the boiling point of any known material, and much hotter than any human can withstand (obviously). At best, the Earth would take a few days to vaporize.

*Back to the binary system. A Type Ia supernova (read: "type one-A") is a type of supernova that occurs in binary systems (two stars orbiting one another) in which one of the stars is a white dwarf. The other star can be anything from a giant star to an even smaller white dwarf.

7

gagaron_pew t1_irkrnft wrote

just a nova to whoever can see it go brighter in the sky for a bit...

1

CocoLog1 OP t1_irkik7e wrote

Sorry, i should've worded this better, what would happen to a planet in a supernova

2

Em_Adespoton t1_irkjago wrote

Atmosphere stripped, planet baked, eventually consumed by star.

5

BallardRex t1_irkkhba wrote

“Eventually” being on the order of hours or days of the planet actively vaporizing, to be clear.

6

jpo234 t1_irkoc9u wrote

That's not a supernova. You are describing a red giant.

0

Em_Adespoton t1_irkpixc wrote

A Red Giant goes the other way; planet cools until life can’t survive, then eventually the star expands to become larger than the orbit of the planet. Supernova claim the planet rather more forcefully and immediately.

2

nimdae t1_irlfkol wrote

If there were any inhabitants on that planet, all of their problems would suddenly be solved.

2

TrunksTheMighty t1_irkjubr wrote

Either we're completely destroyed, earth becomes a shattered bunch of space debris or we're just launched off into space by the shockwave and become a rogue planet.

2

-BlackWizard- t1_irn72hs wrote

Is that really possible for a planet to leave it's orbit and wander off to space because of shockwave?

1

TrunksTheMighty t1_irquf6i wrote

I don't know honestly, depends if it's big enough to overcome the Earth's inertia, might send us flying in pieces though.

1

limacharley t1_irkthw2 wrote

But the sun can't go supernova. It doesn't have nearly enough mass. Instead, it will slowly swell into a red giant star in a few billion years and devour all of the inner planets, including Earth.

1

ChrisARippel t1_irkxmhs wrote

It takes sunlight 8 minutes to reach Earth.

Radiation from the supernovae would destroy the Earth in 8 minutes.

1

Kwiwmxmnwnjqjxkw t1_irljfsa wrote

Wish I could have arguments like these with my friend, my friend doesn't even know exactly the stars are

1

CocoLog1 OP t1_irlji99 wrote

At this point i feel like mine don't either

0

johnwicksdogskiller t1_irlm9e1 wrote

SPF trillion sunblock sells out like toilet paper during the first days of COVID

1

Bulky-Major6427 t1_irmjoem wrote

One half of the planet would have amazing tan lines.

1

LegitimateGift1792 t1_irmymb9 wrote

Solar system consumed and vaporized, some shit in the Ortt cloud might remain. We kill most life within 20ly with radiation.

The Sun WILL go red giant and consume Mercury and Venus, debate on Earth being consumed or just boiled down to the bedrock.

All around Sun big and powerful, bad things happens with it fails to keep its shit together.

1

RaielLarecal t1_irmzfh2 wrote

I would not ponder so much about the aftermath: the beforemath is much more fun and intriguing.

Cuz in order to become a supernova Sol should be much more massive and that could only happend if it merges with another star, and by that time, Earth and probably the whole system would be shred to pieces with planets and moons shooting out (or falling in) from their orbits due to tidal forces and gravitational influence or shockwave from the crash. And the ones that survive would be surely finished off by the supernovas blast.

Earth, being so close to the merging stars stands no chance at all. And I wonder if even Pluto would be safe at all (doubt it). I'd bet even the oort cloud would be disrupted beyond recognition.

But hey! A beatiful planetary nebulae will be born!

1

majorbraindamage t1_irn4r48 wrote

Firstly, its almost impossible. A primordial black hole would have to migrate into the center of the sun for there to be any way to pull that much of the sun's mass into the core. If that happened and our star exploded, then in 8 minutes, everything on Earth, above water and facing the sun. would be instantly vaporized. Those on the dark side of the earth would be roasted by a superheated atmosphere soon thereafter. It would look really cool from The outer planets though.

1

[deleted] t1_irn9wcx wrote

If? It WILL happen...in about 4 billion years and take out the entire solar system. And real estate values will plunge of-course.

1

DeathByLego34 t1_irnguk3 wrote

Due to my limited knowledge.. so basically, dead. Very very dead.

1

CorruptedReign7 t1_irnpay9 wrote

All live on earth dies if the sun went supernova. The Sun isn’t massive enough to go supernova. It’ll turn into a Red Giant star and incinerate Mercury and Venus for sure. All life on Earth will die anyway when that eventually happens. Basically, that’s the end of humanity unless we can colonize other places like solar systems, before then.

1

llynglas t1_irp25jb wrote

We die about 8 minutes after the explosion. Of course the initial shockwave that kills us is the first we know about it, so the 8 minutes is a bit achedemic.

1

jpo234 t1_irko10q wrote

Since the sun is too small to go supernova according to the laws of physics as we understand them, you can make up whatever you want. Expecting a factual answer to a counterfactual premise does not make sense.

0

Krii8 t1_irlskeg wrote

It does. It's like asking what would happen if the earth suddenly stopped spinning. It'll never happen, it can't happen, but you can still do some of the math/physics.

Just because there's a singularity at the end of a black hole, doesn't mean you can't calculate what happens before that...

1

jpo234 t1_iros9wb wrote

Let's rephrase the original question:

>If something happens that violates the laws of physics (e.g. the sun goes supernova), what do the laws of physics say will happen next?

Does that make sense to you? We postulate that the laws of physics don't apply and then ask what would happen according to the laws of physics. It's a contradiction.

1

Krii8 t1_irq7ggj wrote

The way you phrase it I agree. I don't know how he asked the original question, it's deleted. But I think it would've been rephrased something like

> If the sun could go super nova (thus, if we changed the size, mass, orbits etc relatively) what would happen from this distance (instead of light years away)

Or

> What happens to the planets with life around a star that goes super nova

Some people say words like "earth" because they don't know the lingo. They hear for the first time stars can go super nova and obviously try to grasp it. But people keep shooting them down. It's not alright. Be flexible.

1