On Saturday, December 20, 2014 3:03:45 AM UTC+5:45, Liz R wrote: > Well I happen to know someone with a bachelor degree in astrophysics if > that's any help. And the first and most crucial question is, how close is the > SN to Earth? > Right. I've been looking into that and decided around 150ly would be about right for the effects he wants. As for your friend, thanks I'll mention it to Jon and see if he's interested. I think he was hoping I could dig him up a working physicist but I suspect for his requirements just a grad level person would actually do. > Actually I would think a supernova could cause aurorae? Indeed if within > about 20 light years it could strip the ozone layer I think...
Nope. Aurorae are caused by ions, the solar wind. Stripping of ozone layer is the result of gamma radiation. Gas from a supernova would take a helluva long time to reach the earth and would be extremely dilute by the time it did. > > > Not wishing to disrespect him, but couldn't he have got at least a reasonable > idea from internet searches? Wikipedia has a mini-essay on the subject. Yeah he read that, but without a reasonable science background it's still possible to get things quite wrong. He thought the supernova might be able to turn into a black hole later and stuff. > > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-Earth_supernova > > > > > > > > > > > > On 20 December 2014 at 00:48, Pierz <pie...@gmail.com> wrote:So a close > friend of mine is a novelist whose latest book has a supernova in it. It's > not a sci fi novel and the supernova is really quite secondary but provides a > nice backdrop to the literary main fare. I've read the manuscript and though > I'm no astrophysicist I can see his science is full of glaring flaws - for > example the star causes an aurora! And gamma ray headaches... Anyway he needs > an astrophysicist or similar to help him with these details and I said I'd > ask on here if anyone would be prepared to help. He's a full time author and > a serious writer. His last novel has been translated into several languages > and was long listed for Australia's biggest literary award, the Miles > Franklin. So you wouldn't be helping some mug with an unpublishable > manuscript. The book is good. > > > > -- > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com. > > To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com. > > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
