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Terraforming, hmmm, interesting idea. I hadn't thought of that. Still, to get a planet even remotely resembling our home would probably take decades, if not centuries, of massive changes on a global scale. A lot of it would depend on technology and the planet in question. Terraforming Mars to be more like Earth, for instance, would probably be slightly easier than Venus (I think).

I thought the closest star to Earth, Alpha (Proxima) Centauri, was only four light years away? Am I waaaay mistaken here?

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dunno, but IIRC the nearest star to earth is alpha centarui, 4 lightyears away! but i don't know about the stars on the map.

the rest of the article goes on about the solar radiation, only the first 2 pages are about the supernova thing. anyway, most of the rad problem is becuase the ozon layer is gone, so its the ordinary bakground radiation, only the first week or so is caused by the supernova. you might want to calculate what the damage would be, if the entire population of erath would be exposed to the full power of background radiation for a century or so.
as for the power of the radiation,theyre talking 100.000.000 to 1000.000.000 times the sun power.(sorry for the numbers, i know that words would be easier,but i got got fused by the billion and million thing, in dutch its inverted)
but the article doesn`t say what type of radiation they where talking about, however, they doe say something about gamma and UV radiation. not sure tough, and my translation could be of as well! perhaps there is some english article on this, so if anyone remembers something.....

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dunno, but IIRC the nearest star to earth is alpha centarui, 4 lightyears away! but i don't know about the stars on the map.

the rest of the article goes on about the solar radiation, only the first 2 pages are about the supernova thing. anyway, most of the rad problem is becuase the ozon layer is gone, so its the ordinary bakground radiation, only the first week or so is caused by the supernova. you might want to calculate what the damage would be, if the entire population of erath would be exposed to the full power of background radiation for a century or so.
as for the power of the radiation,theyre talking 100.000.000 to 1000.000.000 times the sun power.(sorry for the numbers, i know that words would be easier,but i got got fused by the billion and million thing, in dutch its inverted)
but the article doesn`t say what type of radiation they where talking about, however, they doe say something about gamma and UV radiation. not sure tough, and my translation could be of as well! perhaps there is some english article on this, so if anyone remembers something.....

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The Capella supernova's effects on other systems is a minor theme in my own campaign (The Mercury Affair) so I did a little thinking about the matter a while back.

Since I don`t have any major systems under threat in my campaign and I would love to play a campaign based on that premise here's all the ideas I came up with in the hope I can spark some interest.

1) I found a document about supernova risks online which kasperi might be interested in. I`ve uploaded it to my site and you can find it [URL=http://homepage.ntlworld.com/karajorma/freespace/SuperNovaRisksToEarth.txt]here[/URL]. It's quite technical so be warned.

2) Capella is 42.2 light years from Earth. This puts Earth within the danger zone but means that the GTVA has no way to warn them.

3) There are no good star maps with distances on between the stars that I could find but as far as I could figure out using the starmap from the game Frontier (which is fairly accurate close to Sol) Capella is about 36 years away from the nearest FS2 Era GTVA system (IIRC it was Sirius but don`t quote me on that). There is certainly no GTVA system within 9 LY of Capella.

4) Since the shivans made Capella go nova despite it being nowhere near that point in it's life the supernova may be much less destructive than a normal supernova, of course ANY supernova is bad new when you are in that system but the effects on outside systems may be less. So basically you can make the nova do as little damage to the GTVA systems as you want. You could even have it do more damage if you want since it is after all a non-standard supernova.

5) If the capellan supernova was not what the shivans were trying to achive (remember they did lose a couple of sathanses when the star went nova as well as all the forces battling the GTVA) they may have put there own systems at risk.

6) It might be possible to repair the atmosphere of a supernova damaged world by placing a giant electrical sparker in the upper atmosphere and feeding it lots of oxygen. What effect this would have on the planet though I don`t know

7) Since the wavefront of the explosion travels at lightspeed it would actually take several hours to travel from one side of the system to the other. I`ve based a few missions on this but I`m sure other people have ideas.

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Last edited by karajorma on 11-16-2002 at 02:10 PM

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The Capella supernova's effects on other systems is a minor theme in my own campaign (The Mercury Affair) so I did a little thinking about the matter a while back.

Since I don`t have any major systems under threat in my campaign and I would love to play a campaign based on that premise here's all the ideas I came up with in the hope I can spark some interest.

1) I found a document about supernova risks online which kasperi might be interested in. I`ve uploaded it to my site and you can find it [URL=http://homepage.ntlworld.com/karajorma/freespace/SuperNovaRisksToEarth.txt]here[/URL]. It's quite technical so be warned.

2) Capella is 42.2 light years from Earth. This puts Earth within the danger zone but means that the GTVA has no way to warn them.

3) There are no good star maps with distances on between the stars that I could find but as far as I could figure out using the starmap from the game Frontier (which is fairly accurate close to Sol) Capella is about 36 years away from the nearest FS2 Era GTVA system (IIRC it was Sirius but don`t quote me on that). There is certainly no GTVA system within 9 LY of Capella.

4) Since the shivans made Capella go nova despite it being nowhere near that point in it's life the supernova may be much less destructive than a normal supernova, of course ANY supernova is bad new when you are in that system but the effects on outside systems may be less. So basically you can make the nova do as little damage to the GTVA systems as you want. You could even have it do more damage if you want since it is after all a non-standard supernova.

5) If the capellan supernova was not what the shivans were trying to achive (remember they did lose a couple of sathanses when the star went nova as well as all the forces battling the GTVA) they may have put there own systems at risk.

6) It might be possible to repair the atmosphere of a supernova damaged world by placing a giant electrical sparker in the upper atmosphere and feeding it lots of oxygen. What effect this would have on the planet though I don`t know

7) Since the wavefront of the explosion travels at lightspeed it would actually take several hours to travel from one side of the system to the other. I`ve based a few missions on this but I`m sure other people have ideas.

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Last edited by karajorma on 11-16-2002 at 02:10 PM

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Miraxis
sounds kind of far-flung that radiation like that would do that much damage...and who is to say that the solar radiation given off by the star of a system would not provide a buffer of some sort...you people have to realize that half the crap published in science mags is pure speculation...After all, how would one collect the data? There hasnt been a Supernova, or even a nova, since the crab nebula some 1800 years ago...

---

Miraxis I think you need to look at your science books again The supernova that caused the Crab Nebula was observed on Earth on July 4, 1054 A.D. Since then scientists have observed many supernovae. By studying how much radiation reaches Earth from a supernova 1000LY away it's a simple mathmatical calculation to determine how much radiation would reach you if you were standing right next to it.
As for the tolerence to the suns radiation protecting you that's like saying that holding a candle in one hand should give you the tolerance to proect you from a flamethrower. The fact that a supernova can be detected from thousends of light years away should show that they are spewing out a huge amount of radiation.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Miraxis
As for distance...I think the closest star to earth is 80 light years away...and the star chart in freespace and FS2 is only a 2D version...I think polaris is a good 300 light years away (I am most likely wrong on that number, but it isnt close...)...the closest star to earth, if i remember, is Regulus or Betelgeuse...so I doubt capella is close enough for the radiation to do much more than **** up the local TV station...

---

The closest star to Earth is Proxima Centuri at 4.2LY. It's part of the Alpha Centuri system which is about 4.3LY away.
The FS2 node map doesn`t show distance at all Alpha Centuri is much further away than Delta Serpentis on it and you`re close to correct about the distance for Polaris (it's actually 390LY but who cares? )

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Miraxis
sounds kind of far-flung that radiation like that would do that much damage...and who is to say that the solar radiation given off by the star of a system would not provide a buffer of some sort...you people have to realize that half the crap published in science mags is pure speculation...After all, how would one collect the data? There hasnt been a Supernova, or even a nova, since the crab nebula some 1800 years ago...

---

Miraxis I think you need to look at your science books again The supernova that caused the Crab Nebula was observed on Earth on July 4, 1054 A.D. Since then scientists have observed many supernovae. By studying how much radiation reaches Earth from a supernova 1000LY away it's a simple mathmatical calculation to determine how much radiation would reach you if you were standing right next to it.
As for the tolerence to the suns radiation protecting you that's like saying that holding a candle in one hand should give you the tolerance to proect you from a flamethrower. The fact that a supernova can be detected from thousends of light years away should show that they are spewing out a huge amount of radiation.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Miraxis
As for distance...I think the closest star to earth is 80 light years away...and the star chart in freespace and FS2 is only a 2D version...I think polaris is a good 300 light years away (I am most likely wrong on that number, but it isnt close...)...the closest star to earth, if i remember, is Regulus or Betelgeuse...so I doubt capella is close enough for the radiation to do much more than **** up the local TV station...

---

The closest star to Earth is Proxima Centuri at 4.2LY. It's part of the Alpha Centuri system which is about 4.3LY away.
The FS2 node map doesn`t show distance at all Alpha Centuri is much further away than Delta Serpentis on it and you`re close to correct about the distance for Polaris (it's actually 390LY but who cares? )

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The magnetic field produced by stars can protect an intraplanetary system. There is, then the asteroid belt, and the hypothetical Oort cloud... Those two serve as minor protection against radiation and matter expelled.

Radiation shouldnt be a big concern. Even the radiation jets produced by black holes dont travel at light speed (but near though, about 95%). By the time radiation hits Earth, it would be dispersed enough to cause little harm.

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The magnetic field produced by stars can protect an intraplanetary system. There is, then the asteroid belt, and the hypothetical Oort cloud... Those two serve as minor protection against radiation and matter expelled.

Radiation shouldnt be a big concern. Even the radiation jets produced by black holes dont travel at light speed (but near though, about 95%). By the time radiation hits Earth, it would be dispersed enough to cause little harm.

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I wouldn`t be too certain of that. A supernova puts out an enormous amount of radiation. Even spread out over a 50LY surface it's still a lot. I'd suggest looking at the link I put up. Even if you can't understand most of it the guy uses enough maths to make me trust him

As for radiation not travelling at the speed of light it kind of depends what you`re talking about. Gamma rays will travel at LS, as will X-rays since they are electromagentic radiation. Cosmic rays on the other hand won`t travel as fast since they are particles.

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I wouldn`t be too certain of that. A supernova puts out an enormous amount of radiation. Even spread out over a 50LY surface it's still a lot. I'd suggest looking at the link I put up. Even if you can't understand most of it the guy uses enough maths to make me trust him

As for radiation not travelling at the speed of light it kind of depends what you`re talking about. Gamma rays will travel at LS, as will X-rays since they are electromagentic radiation. Cosmic rays on the other hand won`t travel as fast since they are particles.

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I remember having several of these exact discussions far far away, lol ...

Hmm, I'll have to check up on that info. I'm not sure about the math there, but for topics like this I'd trust physics rather than mathematics more... you cant PROVE or SUPPORT everything using mathematics alone (or even a majority) for this. True, math is still needed, but I think elementary science would have a stronger say than math.

~edit~ Dual wave-particle property states that waves act like particles, and particles act like waves.

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I remember having several of these exact discussions far far away, lol ...

Hmm, I'll have to check up on that info. I'm not sure about the math there, but for topics like this I'd trust physics rather than mathematics more... you cant PROVE or SUPPORT everything using mathematics alone (or even a majority) for this. True, math is still needed, but I think elementary science would have a stronger say than math.

~edit~ Dual wave-particle property states that waves act like particles, and particles act like waves.

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Freedom suppressed and again regained bites with keener fangs than freedom never endangered." -Cicero
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quote:

---

Originally posted by ns33
I remember having several of these exact discussions far far away, lol ...

Hmm, I'll have to check up on that info. I'm not sure about the math there, but for topics like this I'd trust physics rather than mathematics more... you cant PROVE or SUPPORT everything using mathematics alone (or even a majority) for this. True, math is still needed, but I think elementary science would have a stronger say than math.

~edit~ Dual wave-particle property states that waves act like particles, and particles act like waves.

---

I think there's plenty of physics in there too

As for wave/particle duality I`m aware of it but AFAIK protons (the majority of cosmic rays are protons) can't be accelerated to lightspeed and photons can`t be decelerated below it so my comments are still valid.

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Last edited by karajorma on 11-16-2002 at 09:07 PM

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quote:

---

Originally posted by ns33
I remember having several of these exact discussions far far away, lol ...

Hmm, I'll have to check up on that info. I'm not sure about the math there, but for topics like this I'd trust physics rather than mathematics more... you cant PROVE or SUPPORT everything using mathematics alone (or even a majority) for this. True, math is still needed, but I think elementary science would have a stronger say than math.

~edit~ Dual wave-particle property states that waves act like particles, and particles act like waves.

---

I think there's plenty of physics in there too

As for wave/particle duality I`m aware of it but AFAIK protons (the majority of cosmic rays are protons) can't be accelerated to lightspeed and photons can`t be decelerated below it so my comments are still valid.

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I'll comment on this in February, after I'm done with my science fair project (black holes )

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I'll comment on this in February, after I'm done with my science fair project (black holes )

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quote:

---

Originally posted by ns33
I'll comment on this in February, after I'm done with my science fair project (black holes )

---

Just remember that if the shivans did somehow manage to turn Capella into a black hole you can expect even more gamma rays from that too

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quote:

---

Originally posted by ns33
I'll comment on this in February, after I'm done with my science fair project (black holes )

---

Just remember that if the shivans did somehow manage to turn Capella into a black hole you can expect even more gamma rays from that too

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IIRC they speak about a nuetron star on the spot of capella (somewhere, dont know where), so, no black hole. i once did a paper about black holes, (it`s in dutch, otherwise i would have maild it to you, ns33), but if they're would be one on that spot, it would give more problems then just the radiation!

another question,what would the rad levels inside a ship be, since they don`t appear to have any rad shielding, it would result in some problems to! and can someone smarter then me please calculate what the result would be of being exposed to background rad for a long period (starting at around 10 years or so)???cause thats just what will happen, the only thing directly caused by the supernova is that the ozon layer is gone because of nitrogen oxides. and for a planet like earth it will take 100 years to repair that.
and karajorma, i'm gonna read the paper later on. now, i'm just to tired.

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