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."
Leave intellect behind
I laugh at these comments from little girls afraid of the dark!
Leave it to idiots to come up with a lame idea of total destruction from something so grand & large that we want to go run & hide from it, calling our mommies and god knows what.
Huh
So grand and large? Are you the type of person who would just wait for the hurricane to wreck your home, in awe and wonderment at its grandness. Are you saying you'd do nothing at all to save your butt????? Once we become aware of dangers, even though they might be "grand and large", we're entitled to do something about it.
Death Star?
I like the notion of planet X wiping out this planet, and hopefully in these next few years. Otherwise, how many incarnations will we have to wait to experience God, up-close and personal? How many inconvenient pResidents later... ?
too bad
It's too bad it won't ever happen. This world needs a good slap in the face.
Binary 'deathstar' has Earth in its sights
Blue-star kachina ?
American Indian ritual masks portrait similar spiral pattern ...
When blue-star kachina shows its face the sky will turn red ....
All life will walk into spirit world ..... (death ? )
Does publication of this consists of blue kachina ritual mask taken off ? (True meaning disclosed) a verry old warning that survived a previous advanced technology civilization (Like atlantean myth & legend ? ) passed on to american indians in its milenary old rituals?
(Only then whe can know )
when there she blows !
Profetic ? & Poetic?
Maybe ?
but we stand on a cosmic level roach spray kill path ..
as the star becomes "visible" we know we are dead ....
HPT
A.R.K Research (Advanced Research Knowlewdge)
A.C.I.O Advanced Contact Intelligence Org
Binary "deathstar" has Earth in its sights
Forrest Gump " The sky is falling......again."
Death Star
Well that's just great. If Al Qaeda misses; if the Neo-Con Police state fizzles and if Global Warming cools off, it's just lovely to know that the 'ol death star is about to snap off a death ray and cook us all. Lovely. Just lovely. Pardon me now whilst I nip off and hang myself.
Binary deathstar
If I understand correctly, the pictures we are seeing actually ocurred 8,000 years ago (unless those guys at Keck have a new way of receiving light images faster than light).
This impending supernova MAY HAVE already happened several thousands of years ago, and, of course, scientists will not observe this event until 8,000 years after the fact.
I believe the article mentioned the observation that this binary system was in its' final stage of events before the inevitable-
We 'probably' have several hundreds of thousands of years-this is a long way from being 'surely'.
If, tomorrow, scientists observe the supernova that appears to be (or was, 8,000 years ago) inevitable, we will probably have very few hours to muse over the fact that 'scientists' were PROBABLY wrong about their statements, again-as the EM spectrum SURELY travels at the same speed as the light of this event-
God and a scientist were having a discussion one day. The scientist was arguing that with advances in science, the creation of life was within the reach of mankind. God said, 'Really? Show me your ability'. The scientict replied, 'Sure! I'll just take some dirt-' God inturrupted, 'Bring your own dirt!'
Tesla X: Planetary Defense Shield
We have demonstrated the capability to send a vehicle out to 'meet and greet' an asteroid recently and smash into it; so why not send a dozen or so space ROVs out with networked landing/maneuvering capability to steer the darned rocks where they can do the most good, and to NEO where we can use and mine them?
We could ring the Earth with the occasional asteroid that comes close, putting it in a protective orbit to help 'eclipse' such gamma ray events in the future, and we could mine them for what we need in the meantime as we construct this protective grid. In an emergency, one of these could be used as a KKV for another rouge object.
This could result in reduced risk of damage to the terrestrial environment, global cooperation and economic benefits, and we might increase the liklihood of the human race to survive global catastrophe, wormwood, or whatever might come or way.
The technology exists today.
One or two super powers could start to lead the way.
Beyond that, the global community has only themselves to blame if they can't get their collective $#!t together and get something going.
WR-104 and 2012
Could this event be what the Mayans predicted? Perhaps this is what will destroy life on earth in 2012. We know they had a sophisticated calendar system that was able to track universal events more specific than we could. I don't think it's out of the question that they may have been able to see this event coming.