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Plotbunny: Any Douglas Adams Fen up for a two-year trip?
06-10-2009, 03:32 PM
Need to know for sure whether http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/10 ... shrinkage/]Betelgeuse went supernova or not...
--
Rob Kelk
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Wow. I hope if it did go supernova, the wavefront hits in the winter when I can actually see Orion...
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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Would it really take that long to get out there? What is the FTL rating for the average ship?
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IIRC, the standard FTL rating a 'waved ship gets is 500c (plus or minus a percent), irrespective of size. According to the article Rob pointed too,
Betelgeuse is thought to be about 430 (a second link on THAT page gives a of 100 light years on that) light years away. So roughtly 10 and a half months
travel there, a week or two getting readings for the astrophysicists to buy, then another 10 and a half months to get back.
So, 2 years is close enough for government work.
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Probably longer, since they might be stopping along the way to make observations. Because when you can travel faster than light, you can essentially look into
the past by going where the light is about to arrive at.
And with that in mind, the Roughrider's HARDIEs are gonna be planning out a long-term expedition to thoroughly study the supernova, the causes, and
results. It won't happen, though, until they get their hands on their Gagarin-class ships. Mayonaka, since she's the fastest one out of the entire
fleet, will probably be making supply runs to and from.
Slightly off-topic, but has there been much out-of-forum chatter about stuff like breaker-gates lately? I suddenly find myself thinking that having something
like that around to bridge the longer distances rather useful. In this respect our little universe would take on a more Stargate-like scope in that it is very
possible to quickly transit over vast distances of intergalactic scale, but you gotta get there the 'slow' way and plant a gate first.
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Quote:And with that in mind, the Roughrider's HARDIEs are gonna be planning out a long-term expedition to thoroughly study the supernova, the causes, and results.
A manned expedition to a supernova in progress? *Wow* that's dumb. This is the reason unmanned probes exist.
Quote:Slightly off-topic, but has there been much out-of-forum chatter about stuff like breaker-gates lately? I suddenly find myself thinking that having something like that around to bridge the longer distances rather useful. In this respect our little universe would take on a more Stargate-like scope in that it is very possible to quickly transit over vast distances of intergalactic scale, but you gotta get there the 'slow' way and plant a gate first.
That would be telling.
(I have some plans, but they're not crystalized yet & the plot developments are potentially game-changing. I mean beyond a stargate network game-changing. UF-scale stuff. More on this if/when I start finalizing stuff, depending on when I get back to GWO.)
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Quote: A manned expedition to a supernova in progress? *Wow* that's dumb. This is the reason unmanned probes exist.
Is the wave-front honestly going to be that intense from several hundred lightyears out?
Okay, in case no one gets it, using a FTL drive you can actually go to a point in the galaxy where the light emitted by a stellar phenomena like a nova is just
about the get there, and then observe what happens. The idea here is to monitor the supernova from several different points in space to see the different
stages of the supernova, more or less simutaneously. This would give us concrete data on how a supernova works within a few years zipping around the galaxy
instead of remaining stationary and waiting centuries.
Anyhow, while the expedition will be manned, probes are still going to be used to collect data as the wave-front passes. Most of the really 'manned'
stuff will be studying the stellar flotsam and jetsom left in the wash.
Of course, if Betelgeuse has yet to blow, then they'd logically drop as many probes as they feel is prudent and get the hell out of dodge. (How much you
wanna bet there's other research probes left by folks not from Sol?)
Quote: (I have some plans, but they're not crystalized yet & the plot developments are potentially game-changing. I mean beyond a stargate network
game-changing. UF-scale stuff. More on this if/when I start finalizing stuff, depending on when I get back to GWO.)
Keep us posted, boss-man. 
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Quote:Is the wave-front honestly going to be that intense from several hundred lightyears out?
As a rule of thumb you don't want to be within 50 light years of something like that if you're not a fan of irradiation.
Quote:Okay, in case no one gets it, using a FTL drive you can actually go to a point in the galaxy where the light emitted by a stellar phenomena like a nova is just about the get there, and then observe what happens. The idea here is to monitor the supernova from several different points in space to see the different stages of the supernova, more or less simutaneously. This would give us concrete data on how a supernova works within a few years zipping around the galaxy instead of remaining stationary and waiting centuries.
Well, generally if you're doing that you're a) assuming that the wavefront has already reached Earth without being observed (unlikely, as Betelgeuse is one of the most-observed stars in the sky) and b) you're travelling *away* from the nova in question.
If the star *hasn't* gone nova in the 420 years since the last light hit your scopes but you're *expecting* that it went nova at some point in the recent past, then the *last* thing you want to do is move *toward* the kill radius. That's plain *dumb*. Send probes, send lots of probes.
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Quote: As a rule of thumb you don't want to be within 50 light years of something like that if you're not a fan of irradiation.
Okay then, so observing from a distance isn't the issue...
Quote: Well, generally if you're doing that you're a) assuming that the wavefront has already reached Earth without being observed (unlikely, as Betelgeuse
is one of the most-observed stars in the sky) and b) you're travelling *away* from the nova in question.
Sure, there's that, but we haven't seen the blinding flash yet, so...
Quote: If the star *hasn't* gone nova in the 420 years since the last light hit your scopes but you're *expecting* that it went nova at some point in the
recent past, then the *last* thing you want to do is move *toward* the kill radius. That's plain *dumb*. Send probes, send lots of probes.
Pretty much what I had in mind. If they observe no nova on the inbound, they'd stop at a safe distance and let the probes go in from there.
Once they have ascertained that the star has not gone supernova, however, the situation will shift gears dramaticly - it is treated more like an impending
volcanic eruption. They have certain readiness codes, and (to my humble knowledge) once you upgrade from one code-level to the next, there's no downgrading
again. At this point, risks are taken in the name of science. Temporary observation posts are established. They can be quickly taken down at a moment's
notice, but are ultimately disposable (except the scientists, of course). It would be something that I imagine that a lot of scientist in the field of stellar
phenomena would take the risks to see.
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