TREK/SCIENCE: Safe Distance from Supernovae (Trek Spoilers?)

[dewline]

Since the topic came up in in last week's episode of Star Trek: Discovery...thanks to the suggestion of the Emperor Emeritus of the Terran Empire...which was rightly condemned by the rest of the people at that particular table.

https://twitter.com/marsrader/status/1120097175197900801

50-100 lightyears. And that's even before we get into the discussion of subspace effects propagating far faster compared to normal-space damage-waves, as established in Trekkish lore in movies VI and XI.

Noting also this list:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_supernova_candidates

Alpha Lupi, cited in Michael Burnham's backstory in "The Red Angel", is definitely on that list. A good thing that it's about 460-465 lightyears away from us. Eta Lupi/Cerberus is about 150 lightyears closer to us...but still at least as safe, given current theory on supernovae.

(Would IK Pegasi be in Breen territory? Apparently not, going by Geoffrey Mandel and Jed Whitten. More likely, it's on the far side of what the former had pegged as Breen space in 2002.)

Comments

[thewayne]

Definitely going to try to remember to discuss this with my wife. The physical blast effects would be easily avoided, but I'm pretty sure there's x-ray/gamma ray components. And then you have looser concentration of dispersal as the sphere expands - not good verbiage, but you may follow.

[dewline]

I look forward to hearing back after that conversation.

[thewayne]

We discussed this for a few minutes the other day.  A stellar explosion will be typically preceded by an x-ray/gamma-ray/neutrino burst by a couple of minutes before the star shatters, sending out debris.  The debris will be moving fast - but not FTL - any able Starfleet/UFP spacecraft can dodge them if its stupid enough to be in-system.  A starbase that's in-system and hasn't been evacuated - that is in trouble.  The bit about x/gamma/neutrinos preceding the explosion?  (and with current tech neutrinos cannot be detected real-time)  So you're going to know the star is due to explode before it happens because of its behavior - the cycle of the star's expansion/collapse as it consumes all its hydrogen, helium, etc. as it works through its elements.  Our system's star's photosphere will scorch Mars as it cycles at its end of life. You've evacuated the system long before this has happened - or lots of people are going to die.  So you've got probes in the system monitoring the sun at X light minute intervals while you sit 1 LY away.  As soon as two of those probes go offline within two minutes, you know the star has gone KA-BLOEY because they've been destroyed by x-rays/gamma rays - you don't want them strongly shielded, you want them destroyed by this energy wave - they're a tripwire!  You're perfectly safe from debris a LY away - even a quarter LY away - since it moves sub-FTL and it'll be about a year before the FTL energy components get to you.  I have no idea if shields are proof against neutrinos, but I wouldn't want to be in the neighborhood.  As far as the physical debris is concerned, Newton says an object in motion continues in motion until acted upon by another force, so that debris will continue until it hits something, which means full sensor watch, full weapons watch, and full maintenance watch on both areas if you're in the area.  But with the square of the expanding sphere, you'd have to be pretty close, possibly in-system, for them to represent a serious threat that required immediate reaction, and then you have FTL energy particles to worry about.

My wife says that when Betelgeuse novas (or supernovas, I don't remember which she said) everyone will need to stay indoors when it's up in the sky because of x-ray exposure.  Good thing we have smart devices these days that we can have an app to warn us of such!