Scientists Accurately Predict Supernova

sckienle writes "Space.com has an article about a group of scientists who accurately predicted when the light of a supernova would reach Earth. (Ok, so they were only days ahead of the burst.) But this goes a fair way to confirming their model of supernovae."

This image text kicks ass

[fredrikj]

Do gamma ray bursts cause mass extinctions? Without question, the answer is probably yes or no, according to the experts.

Heh

Re:This image text kicks ass

[Ashtray_Waterloo]

Well, that definitely leaves out "Maybe"....

Re:This image text kicks ass

[Guignol]

But according to others experts, the answer could very well be yes and no...

Wow - pretty cool accuracy.

[UnknownSoldier]

2 billion light years away, and they were within a day! Wonder what the error rate on that is?

Predicting thunder upon seeing lightning

[wowbagger]

The /. headline is misleading - the scientists did not predict the supernova. They predicted that the detection of gamma ray burst from the supernova would preceed the detection of the visible light from the supernova.

That would be roughly equivelent to predicting a clap of thunder upon seeing a flash of lightning. Granted, if you didn't know lightning caused thunder this would be a great thing, but it is hardly the same as predicting the lightning in the first place.

Don't get me wrong - this is still good science. But the /. headline was a bit misleading.

Re:Predicting thunder upon seeing lightning

[RandomInAction]

I have to agree, I wondered how they could predict when light from an event they haven't seen, so don't know has occurred, will be detected. All they have done is join the dots, to form the line that the gamma burst precedes the supernova, and both are caused by the same event. So they are predicting a change in the dominant frequency of light rather than the arrival of it.

However this is good evidence for their model, when it isn't known that lightning caused thunder to paraphrase. The line they've drawn

The real question is...

[jpsst34]

Will the be able to predict the next Champagne Supernova? Cuz, man, I don't think I want to be near when those blokes come around again.

interesting idea from reading the article

[Sevn]

What about generating crypt keys based on a
random sampling of the night sky with a powerful
digital telescope?

Rama

[grayrest]

I wonder if they stole it from their female grad student and then married her to keep her quiet, allowing them to be among those selected for the second rondezvous with the extraterrestrial....

or not.

A million years?

[mike_mgo]

It used to be when scientists predicted the time and date of when a star would explode, they might be off by a million years.

Umm, how did they check their predictions again?

Re:A million years?

[Noren]

1. "That star will explode in exactly one million years."

2. BOOM

3. Profit! er, I mean Publish!

GRB extinction

[PhilHibbs]

Reading the linked article "Cosmic Cannon: How an Exploding Star Could Fry Earth [space.com]", I'm left thinking... So what? It's not like there's anything we could even dream about doing about it, except maybe get off the planet so all our eggs aren't in one basket, and that isn't going to happen (a viable colony that can surive forever without us) for a long, long time. So, why even worry about it? If it happens, we won't even know it, except maybe briefly.

Re:GRB extinction

[brian728s]

How long would the burst last? If it was short enough, would a little less than half of the planet be shielded by the other half from the effects? Note" Build this for self http://www.theonion.com/onion3123/hawkingexo.html

Some more on this from the BBC

[RandomInAction]

Making clear that: The prediction was the consequence of detecting a pulse of energy in the form of gamma rays from the same direction ten days earlier. [bbc.co.uk]

later...

[msouth]

...it was revealed that they got their information about the timing of the supernova from a man who is currently in custody of the SEC.