Destroyer of worlds: Astronomers overlaid 11 time lapse images of the rotating star system WR 104 to reveal a 30 billion-kilometre-long tail that billows out in a spiral around it.
Credit: University of Sydney
SYDNEY: A spectacular, rotating binary star system is a ticking time bomb, ready to throw out a searing beam of high-energy gamma rays – and Earth may be right in the line of fire.
Astronomers at the University of Sydney, in Australia, first discovered the unusual and beguilingly beautiful star system eight years ago in the Constellation Sagittarius. One member of the pair is a highly unstable star known as a Wolf-Rayet, thought to be the final stage of stellar evolution to precede a cataclysmic supernova explosion.
"When it finally explodes as a supernova, it could emit an intense beam of gamma rays coming our way", said Peter Tuthill, lead researcher of the team that report their findings in the current Astrophysical Journal.
Vast and glowing plume
At a distance of 8,000 light-years from Earth, the pair of stars are a short hop away in galactic terms, and just one quarter of the way to the centre of our Milky Way galaxy.
The researchers took images of the system, known as WR 104, over a period of eight years using Hawaii's Keck Telescope. These images reveal a vast and glowing plume of heated dust and gas, billowing out in a spiral as the stars rotate once every eight months. This 'tail' is up to 30 billion kilometres long.
But something curious about the images caught the attention of the experts.
"Viewed from Earth, the rotating tail appears to be laid out on the sky in an almost perfect spiral. It could only appear like that if we are looking nearly exactly down on the axis of the binary system," said Tuthill.
This means we are peering down the barrel of the gun, as when binary supernovae go off, all their energy is focussed into a narrow beam of wildly destructive gamma ray radiation that emanates (both up and down) from the poles of the system.
"If such a gamma-ray burst happens, we really do not want Earth to be in the way," he said. "I used to appreciate this spiral just for its beautiful form, but now I can't help a twinge of feeling that it is uncannily like looking down a rifle barrel."
Binary Deathstar
The article is of the opinion that the "deathstar" has still to explode as a supernova. However, scientists are today seeing the binary star as it was a long, long time ago. How do we know that it hasn't already exploded ? Or that the gamma rays are only a few years/ months away ?
The whole problem of viewing the Universe is the time that it takes "information" to arrive. Is it not the case that, for all we know, much of what we see in the night sky is already dead and gone ?
A miserable viewpoint, I concede ! However, there seems much to be miserable about - gamma rays, asteroids, a heating-up sun, the European Union, etc. etc. !!!
Martians
The Martians will be the end of us!!!
B-warz teh rath uv Ceiling Cat
Four he haz hiz claw on teh kosmik triggerz!!!
Binary Deathstar
I like to think that since so many bad things can happen, gamma ray bursts, asteroid/comet impacts etc , we should spend our time wisely. We collectively should decide to quit killing eachother and start working together to move off this oasis of Earth. The only way we can assure our species survival , in the long term, is to thrive in many places. If we continue things the way we have for so very long, we will just end up another extinct species.
It is human nature to kill
It is human nature to kill each other. Death Star is the least of our problems.
Extinction by Binary Deathstar
I guess extinction is God's way of telling use we did'nt make the species cut?
binary deathstar
Better concentrate what we are doing at present moment. We won´t live long till the earth is burnt by the gamma rays. And even if it would happen tomorrow, so what? What else can we do? Try to die with mindfulness.
death star
Ah the ole serpent eating his tail sign.
Or Wormwood.
What's 8000 years between friends?
How do we know that it hasn't already exploded? We don't, but the question is pretty meaningless. If it "really" exploded 8000 years ago (next month to us), it won't matter until next month. For us, it "really" explodes then. Our clock and its are off by 8000 years, but both clocks are valid.
Now, 8000 light-years, as a measure of distance, does matter. I'd rather be farther away, but don't have a choice.
As to this being a problem, I see it more as an opportunity. If light traveled at infinite speed, all we would get is today's news. As it is, we look at a galaxy a billion light-years away and see a billion years into the past. Far more interesting.
We do still have time
In reply to your comment which stated that "How do we know that it hasn't already exploded ? Or that the gamma rays are only a few years/ months away ?", I would say that your argument has no basis. What you are saying is that gamma rays travel faster than 'visible' light waves. this is actually impossible as both move at 3x10^8 m/s (being both electromagnetic (light) waves). In addition, you said "How do we know that it hasn't already exploded ?", to which the answer would be; if scientists can tell the distance of any star, they are most likely also able to tell the distance of this one and estimate the number of lightyears it is away. they take this into account when deciding 'how far gone' the star is and simply subtract it from the time we have left.
i agree about the EU though