Supernova explosion.
Millions of suns shine above our heads. One of them, the star Wolf-Rayet in the WR 104 constellation about 8,400 light-years away, could become a supernova overnight. And it is this transformation that has been frightening scientists for several years.
The WR 104 star system, consisting of a Wolf-Rayet star and stars B and O, was discovered in 1998. It is surrounded by an elongated spiral-shaped dust envelope over 200 AU in diameter. “I was gleefully gazing at the Pinwheel Nebula. It has a beautiful shape. Now I can’t help but feel like I’m looking down at the barrel of a gun,” says Peter Tuthill, an astronomer at the University of Sydney.
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Wolf-Rayet stars are considered a time bomb. They have a great weight, high brightness and a short duration. They are the last stage before a supernova explosion and produce dangerous gamma rays.
Wolf-Rayet star
This is what can threaten our planet. “There are about a hundred Wolf-Rayet stars, and any of them can be a source of gamma-ray bursts. But WR 104 is the only one that appears to be facing the Earth. So we’re right in the line of fire, “Tuthill explains.” The worst part is that we can’t yet estimate exactly when a supernova explosion might occur. The time frame is between now and the next 500,000 years “.
Although gamma rays do not penetrate the Earth’s atmosphere, they would chemically damage the stratosphere. Astrophysicist Adrian Melott of the University of Kansas at Lawrence estimates that if WR 104 were to hit us with a 10-second explosion, the radiation could destroy about 25% of the ozone layer, which protects us from harmful ultraviolet rays. “That would be very bad. We will see a massive extinction in the oceans, an agricultural crisis and a famine,” describes the scientist.
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At the same time, gamma rays would cause more smog to form. This could reduce the impact of sunlight by 1-2%. This would result in a slight cooling of the planet. “But luckily, a new ice age wasn’t going to happen,” says Melott.
Blue lightning
But the extent of the disaster depends on the rotation of the star. Despite the detailed analysis, it is still not certain at what angle it is tilted with respect to the Earth. Observing the sky with the Keck I telescope, the inclination was found to be between 10 ° and 15 °. At the same time, an angle of up to 20 ° poses a high risk of our planet being hit by a gamma-ray burst. A few years later, however, it was calculated that the slope is between 30 ° and 40 °.
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At the same time, it is uncertain how wide the energy beams that gamma-ray bursts are released. “An earth transformed into brightness would experience something like a distant nuclear explosion. Living organisms would then be at risk for radiation sickness, “says Tuthill. However, the beam can only” lick “our planet. Therefore, scientists are now focusing on whether WR 104 is indeed heading for Earth and how powerful its gamma rays could be.
Source:
www.globe24.cz, www.foxnews.com, www.star-facts.com, www.nbcnews.com
