Registered: Feb 2001
Location: England
Posts: 632

how many light years is Capella from Earth?

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Registered: Nov 2000
Location: Finland
Posts: 553

45, IIRC.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: The Cold Northland!
Posts: 8392

So it'll be a few years before they see anything at Sol. Perhaps in Vega you might see something tho.

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Registered: Oct 2000
Location: Tania Austrailis
Posts: 3322

Visable from Sol I suppose, after a while of course, do you think the Terrans could have seen this, and if it had any impact on their plight with the GTVA?

Ice?
Ace?
Dynamo?
'nee one?

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Registered: Dec 2000
Location: Devonport, Tasmania, Australia
Posts: 369

Wouldn't the supernova been seen from earth by the time BWO is set?

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Registered: Dec 2000
Location: Jerusalem, Israel
Posts: 928

quote:

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Originally posted by Turnsky:
Wouldn't the supernova been seen from earth by the time BWO is set?

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They just answered that! Light from the supernova travels at (surprise!) the speed of light. If there are 45 lightyears between Earth and Capella, than it would take the light from the supernova 45 years to reach Earth. Since BWO occurs only 8 years or so after Capella...
The Capellan light that Earth would be seeing at the time of BWO is light that set out on it's interstellar journey 5 years before the Great War. :cooleyes:



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"He who laughs last thinks slowest."
"Just becase you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you."
"To err is human; to really screw up you need a computer."

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Registered: Dec 2000
Location:
Posts: 56

what is :cooleyse: ?

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i'm wrong, i know, so what

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Registered: Dec 2000
Location: Devonport, Tasmania, Australia
Posts: 369

OK smartypants, try answering these two..
why is snipes the way he is?
and why don't you see ANY commercial traffic in the Freespace series?

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Milton Keynes, UK
Posts: 1216

You do see a bit, if you imagine that not all of the military-looking freighters are in fact military, but civilian - take the evacuation of Vasuda in FS1 as an example. However, if you want to see real civvy traffic I'd go play I-War 2 when it comes out. I know I will be.

Also, remember that the jump nodes in FS2 in no way correspond to the locations of stars, really - Alpha Centauri is closest to Sol but is without a jumpnode. The first system to see the supernova may well be Ross 128, or Vasuda.

Oh, and finally - imagine what the effects of having a supernova explode on the doorstep of these nearby stars would be. Apparently the occurence of a supernova is a 'mass-extinction event' on planets nearby, and can even affect those on the other side of the galaxy in unexpected ways. If you see the light within 30 years, you're probably too close. And radiation sickness kills, and the particles released could probably burn away atmosphere and make seas boil. Ouch.

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Registered: Dec 2000
Location: Jerusalem, Israel
Posts: 928

quote:

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Originally posted by Kellan:
Also, remember that the jump nodes in FS2 in no way correspond to the locations of stars, really - Alpha Centauri is closest to Sol but is without a jumpnode. The first system to see the supernova may well be Ross 128, or Vasuda.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location:
Posts: 1477

Kellan, the sub-space node network has no relation to the actual distances between stellar bodies, only mass and parallels in the N-dimensional space that forms sub-space or freespace.

This means that though there is no direct node between Alpha Centauri and Earth, in the FreeSpace universe it is still the closest physical star to Earth.

The node charts show a comparison of sub-space transit times and actual physical location of the planets. (transit calculations may vary, so different charts may be slightly different) That is why node charts aren't perfect with the relative positioning of stellar objects in light-years.

Edit: Capella for a supernova since it's artificial will more than likely have a lower yield than a natural one. Even then, the shockwave would have the star's distances in light-years to reach a planet.

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Ace
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[This message has been edited by Ace (edited 05-15-2001).]

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: The Cold Northland!
Posts: 8392

I fail to see where Kellan got it wrong Ace.

The subspace field may infact have limited the overall explosion. Good point. We don't know what happened exactly

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Registered: Mar 2001
Location: Downton, Diego Garcia, BIOT
Posts: 421

a shockwave in space spreads evenly as it expands, but the energy contained in the shock wave doesn't change. by the time it reaches the closest inhabited system to cappella, it will have faded to some thing that is managable through shelters or temprorary evacuations. it would probably only be a momentary rise in the background radiation levels, which could be protected against through the use of a bunch of starships rconfiguring their sheilds for maximum diameter instead of strength. then the would just assume a shild position on the side of the planet facing cappella and ride out the storm. their might also be thin nebula still travelling on the shock wave, though it would probably arrive later. oh and theri would also be a godawfully bright light for several days wich wuold raise the planets tempurature by about 10-20 degrees, which couses its own problems. it would most likely go back to normal after a while, but the crops that year would most likely be ruined.

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Registered: May 2001
Location: somehwere
Posts: 6

Someone will make a campaign outta that.

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Registered: Dec 2000
Location: Devonport, Tasmania, Australia
Posts: 369

you din't answer my first question kellan.

Why is snipes the way he is?

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In the grand Scheme of things we are all insignifigant. even a shivan.

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Registered: Dec 2000
Location: Jerusalem, Israel
Posts: 928

quote:

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Originally posted by Charger:
...it would probably only be a momentary rise in the background radiation levels, which could be protected against through the use of a bunch of starships rconfiguring their sheilds for maximum diameter instead of strength...

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Ummm... which starships with shields exactly are we talking about here?

Oh, and y'all should take note that the light (and whatever radiation emanating from the supernova that travelled at the speed of light) would reach a given location after a time equal to the distance from Capella in lightyears. The shockwave, debris, etc would travel at a much slower speed and would also dissapate along the way more than light rays.



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"He who laughs last thinks slowest."
"Just becase you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you."
"To err is human; to really screw up you need a computer."

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Registered: Oct 2000
Location: Tania Austrailis
Posts: 3322

Heh, I ask a simple question and it leads to a discussion, Nice!

BTW; Wouldn't the shockwave from the Capella nova eventually hit Sol? Theres really nothing in space to absorb it completely, right? Ace?

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location:
Posts: 1477

Kellan's bit about the first system to see Capella being Ross 128 or some other system caught me a bit off guard. (I thought he meant that the FS universe doesn't use real-life star distances for where the systems truly are)

Alright, understood

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Dayton
Posts: 1430

quote:

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Originally posted by Snipes:
Heh, I ask a simple question and it leads to a discussion, Nice!

BTW; Wouldn't the shockwave from the Capella nova eventually hit Sol? Theres really nothing in space to absorb it completely, right? Ace?

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No matter where you are, shockwaves disapate (sp?). The sound from an explosion gets more and more faint the farther you are from it.

Think about this. When something explodes, there is an initial force. That is the maximum amount of energy that it can have. Now as the the shockwave expands, the diameter increases while the energy it has does not. This stretches the energy over a wider area and therefore makes it less potent. Eventually, the shockwave becomes so stretched out that it no longer has an effect.

If what you stated was actually the case, we would've been dead eons ago. Supernovas occur quite frequently in the universe. We've witnessed several here on Earth in the past. In fact one or two of those was close enough and large enough to light the sky at night. (Think of the panic and chaos it created to those unenlightened dark age folks back then )



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Dynamo
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Registered: Oct 2000
Location: Tania Austrailis
Posts: 3322

Heh, I didn't think of that. You're right... :-/

Oh well... Though it would have been cool to be stationed on a ship in, say, Deneb, and getting rocked with the supernova's blast.

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