Starship Asterisk*

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap061026.html
The intriguing Crab. Do you suppose that this nebula will eventually condense back into a star? Or will it gradually drift apart? Would the nebula pose danger to star systems that may be caught up by the expanding cloud?
Orin

Today's APOD (2006/10/26) talks of the "death explosion" of the star which produced M1. Why all this lugubrious buzz about "death stars", etc., when bursting stars are the initial propagators of life in the universe? We are made of, or depend on, the oxygen, carbon, silicon, iron, and so forth that was cooked in the belly of a star and expelled in a glorious delivery, leaving a beautiful reminder like image we see today.

When I see a supernova remnant I am reminded of burst milkweed pods in a meadow. These are not death stars, they are hatching or foaling stars.

Sounds kind of like a "glass half full" "glass half emtpy" sort of an argument.

One man's ceiling is another man's floor.

- Paul Simon -

Dr. Skeptic wrote:One man's ceiling is another man's floor.

- Paul Simon -

For apartment/condominium dwellers anyway

The short answer is, most of the ejecta exceeds escape velocity of the neutron star, what doesn't initially escape will create an accretion disk and be fired of into space as polar jets or assimilated into the neutron star. In a few billion years the nebula will be sheered and dispersed by interstellar winds becoming parts of other stars but very unlikely to be reborn as one new star.

ahhhh the death wish, hidden in the background.

LOL

Norval

Thanks; I wondered that; but also wondered if the gravitational pull of the neutron star might be enough to bring all that stellar gas and dust back toward itself. Do you suppose the debris may be fodder for the creation of comets and asteroids that just roam the galaxy until finally being captured by some other star? A lot of junk may be lurking between the stars.
Orin

Sure, we can look at it one way or another, the ceiling is a floor, etc. Craterchains, at least, mentions a certain "death wish" - but in media talk about supernovas the death wish isn't hidden, it's waved around like a flag. So why do we so readily attach our death-obsession to these magnificent life-giving phenomena?

When your children were born did you mourn the death of the placenta?

The death is the current observation - here and now. The siring of daughter stars is not the event but future rewards. When we observe new star's births, we're not morning the sacrificial novae. Ying and Yang.

Naturally we fear what we do not understand as all animals do. The obsession comes not from the mention of its terminology but rather from its interpretation.

The roots of "the fear of death", as it means to us in our society today, is deeply embedded into the fundamentals of religion. The ultimate power of control is to reinforce a fear of death into the subject(s) and the punishment for non compliance.

I'm thinking "supernovae .... burny burny hot hot.... " is probably a very rational perspective to take, being that we are a species which is somewhat intent on self preservation.

They're no good to us now, in other words

Two threads on this APOD merged.

Nereid wrote:Two threads on this APOD merged.

Next time, please give the new thread subject header so we can follow it. (I found the last message above by reviewing my own posts, but the trail ends here.)

I don't really understand why these two threads were merged since they are two entirely different conversations...

For those interested, this Chandra webpage has information on the location, image scale, distance to M1, etc.

Axel wrote:

Nereid wrote:Two threads on this APOD merged.

Next time, please give the new thread subject header so we can follow it. (I found the last message above by reviewing my own posts, but the trail ends here.)

Happy to do so - what would you have suggested, re this merged thread?

l3p3r wrote:I don't really understand why these two threads were merged since they are two entirely different conversations...

Good question!

This forum, including the Night Sky Live sections and the Asterisk Cafe, is undergoing a few changes ... you might have noticed a great deal less spam, for example (and all the old spam has now been removed ... I hope).

One of the changes is to return this, Discuss an APOD, section to what it was intended for - discussion of a particular APOD. Other (astronomy) discussions should be in the Café (you may have noticed that several threads with such discussions have already been moved).

If you'd like, I can split out the 'death' posts, into a separate thread, and move it to the Café.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

mmm yes, ONLY discuss picture content of a particular APOD, , , ,

a bit OVER controling I think, but by far, much more SAFE.

Norval

I sure have noticed Nereid! Huge improvement!

I suppose I am happy to have discussions merged in exchange for a clean and orderly messageboard