
Nuclear blast sends star hurtling across galaxy - elorant
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-53415294
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ivalm
900000 km/h = 250 km/s. This is fast but comparable to 224 km/s that the sun
moves. Our galaxy itself moves at ~600 km/s relative to local cluster center
of mass.

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jojobas
The Sun is way slower in regards to neighboring stars. 250 km/s is an order of
magnitude faster than Sun/Alpha Centauri relative speed.

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Aperocky
Yep, there's no true reference frame in the universe - Einstein realized that
more than 100 years ago and put it down as the theory of relativity.

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ivalm
Microwave background provides a kind of reference frame for the universe. We
are moving ~370km/s relative to it [0]. We are fairly certain CMB is
homogenous so this reference frame is same everywhere.

[0]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_microwave_background](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_microwave_background)

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Hongwei
Imagine being on some planet far away, just living your life, and a literal
star comes through and ends all life in the system.

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xwdv
If the star is a direct hit on your planet, it would look as if a second sun
was getting brighter and larger, and the heat so unbearable you’ll be dead
before there’s any impact.

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BurningFrog
It wouldn't just show up some day, ambush style.

It would be slowly getting closer and closer over centuries.

The warning doesn't really change how the story ends though...

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foota
It could, if you're where we are now developmentally you could conceivably
determine a safe place in the solar system to colonize in the thousands or
more likely millions of years it would take to arrive, right? Or maybe more
realistically leave or build large scale space habitats (since there might be
no safe planet due to rotation of them).

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saagarjha
Generally a star plowing through your solar system is going to throw most
orbits into wack, so you may not want to be in the solar system at all.

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foota
Hah, amusingly I failed to consider that. I wonder how fast a sun would have
to move through to have a negligible (or at least not catastrophic) effect on
orbits?

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samus
The Oort cloud around the Solar system ranges halfway to the next star. That
far out the Sun is probably not the only relevant influence anymore. Even
though stars would have to get really close to be able to mess up orbits of
the inner Solar system, a large comet can absolutely wreck the biosphere if it
hits us.

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pupdogg
Everyone’s views in this discussion are really enlightening for someone like
myself who has been consumed with nothing but programming the last few months!
Miss being a kid and dreaming about space travel.

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alexfromapex
Is that picture real? Drives me crazy seeing articles with stock art that
might as well be completely fabricated

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Tagbert
That looks like an illustration, not a photo

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Koshkin
Question is, in what direction.

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henearkr
Maybe an alien civilization just fired off this star for some gigantic war...

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steve76
Something hot and bright far away emits photons. What are those? Heat transfer
through the medium of time, right? A fast clock is bright and speeds up a slow
clock that's dark.

What's the difference between a tiny spot on the Hubble, or any material for
that matter, turning colder and darker always when pointed into that
direction? Voltage spikes up at that sensor and it sees a hot spot because it
caves in on itself instead of being hit with a beam of energy in motion for
billions of years.

Weak force parity violation?

Is that just some higher abstraction on top of pair production and spontaneous
particle creation?

Electromagnetism is the emission of photons and the absorption through the
photovoltaic effect. Matter decay is mass decreasing and releasing energy
without EM. Or EM plus negating the effect by messing with that EM
counterbalance. Or gravity, the heat transfer through the medium of time,
interaction so fine it looks like you are broadcasting to everything at once
if something else tries to trace it.

That's what I'm thinking. Eventually spontaneous particle creation is the
basis of all interaction. Not EM or photons. I think humans get to it, that we
do it already. Massive celestial objects pop into existence because highly
accurate sensors here on Earth say they must. Particles here pop into
existence and they give the data of everything out there for no other reason
than they must. Instead of being loss in a vast sea of stuff, the universe is
a very complex filter to a massive energy source.

When they talk of causality violation, backwards time travel, I think of
hitting the big bang itself, or original energy source. Throwing dynamite into
the wave you're surfing on.

Forget worrying about a star crashing through Earth. Earth is the source of
all destructive acts in the universe for the most trivial of reasons, and we
have soverign access to all that out there to make our lives the slightest bit
better for any reason.

Just some thoughts I get when I read these things. Thanks for that article.

