Expert: Tom Whiting - 7/19/2008

Question
QUESTION: Yeah i know this may be a complicated question to answer.
But, I'm wondering about the wolf rayet star WR 104.

I've heard alot of crazy stuff out there everything from this star poses no threat because 3000 ly is the min distance to harm you.. to stuff like december 21 2012 bs....


So my question is..
Is this star spinning fast enough to produce a gamma ray burst that will fire right at the earth and kill us all?
Or will it not even do that and just explode as a regular supernova?

thanks Tom.

ANSWER: Oh, part 3 of your question...that's easy. No one really knows.....
whether it will be (at some future date)... whether it goes the normal supernova route, or fries us as a strong GRB.  I think that's up (and only known) to a much Higher Power than you or me.
And if it does, what can be done about it? Nothing.

I never worry about anything that I don't have any possible control over, and neither should you.
Clear Skies,
Tom

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: yeah so how thick would the lead walls have to be for a hypernova bunker to protect me from gamma ray bursts from WR 104.....the pinwheel star   lol
i might hire a contractor to build my bunker....
i need your opinion

ANSWER: You know, ever since you brought this up to my attention, I was
thinking almost the same line, a lead lined bunker.  But honestly,
this is out of my expertise so I also have no idea how thick
a lead bunker would have to be.  And for how long?
Certainly you'd only have to stay under cover while Sagittarius
was above your horizon...right now from about 8 pm - 4 am local
time, as the Earth would effectively block gamma radiation during
the other 16 hours.

The source of lead could be old auto batteries, stacked upward,
and maybe 3 or 4 batteries thick, I think. But I'm really not
sure, plus I would think gravel would be a good blocking agent
too, but again, I don't know how thick.
We'll have to do more research on this, and perhaps the answer
is highly variable, depending on the actual strength of the gamma
radiation. So I'll have to get back to you on this one.
At least we're thinking along the same lines.
Clear Skies,
Tom

FOLLOW UP:
Part way down on this website they discuss gamma ray shielding, at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_ray

Of course, the atmosphere itself stops regular influx of background
gamma rays, but I would assume after several hours of bombardment from a source like wr 104, gamma radiation would finally penetrate to the surface.
The article above indicates that the more mass you can get between
you and the source, the better....therefore, it may be possible not
to build anything out of lead, but rather just find a deep hole
(perhaps 15-30 feet) underground for your hypernova shelter....
obviously, the deeper the better. Then lay a few feet thick of concrete on top of your bunker.  Of course, you're going to emerge
to face brown smoggy skies (NO2) and probably weeks of severe nitric
acid rain, death to most plant life, complete breakdown of modern
civilization where food (not money or gas or oil) rules. And thrown
into a cave-man type survival mode for many centuries, with an
ensuing ice age as the Earth rapidly cools.
Hope this helps,
Clear skies with no gamma rays,
Tom Whiting
Erie, PA


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: i asked stan woosley about this and this is what he said...

"First not every star that has an axis of rotation pointed at us will make a GRB.
No one knows, but the odds that this one will make a GRB as bright as
the common ones seen at high redshift are very small. The same theory that
says that such stars *could* make a GRB also says that this one is
an unlikely candidate.

In any case the time scale is at least 1 to 10 million years. Don't hold your breath and
don't worry about it.

Also numerical coincidences mean nothing. If this makes a GRB on  given date
the event wouldn't arrive for thousands of years. Light propagation delay time ....

Stan"

so i guess were safe...
this is just for any readers wanting to know more about it...

Answer
Hi Steven,
Well, I think the time frame could be from today and for the next
100,000 years, as opposed to millions of years. The one star, the
Wolf-Rayet star, is in its last stable stage.  Also the delay time
is meaningless, because it could have already gone supernova 8000
years ago, and could arrive tomorrow. Our only warning would be the
advanced (by several hours) a huge neutrino output to our neutrino
detectors in Sudbury Canada, Japan, and several other locations.

But I do agree with the rest of his analysis.

Oh, one other point that I've determined is that it would probably
be a "long GRB" as opposed to a short (millisecond) GRB. But even
a long GRB is only a few minutes or hours long of high intensity.  So under that time frame, there is no time to get to a hypernova bunker. Odds are that it would be below your horizon for those few minutes anyway.
(These are not the super-jets we see emanating from the cores of
galaxies like M-87 which are continuous bombardment).
Furthermore, I would suspect that no gamma rays would make it down
thru the atmosphere to the surface, only the secondary particles
as they cascade down in shower form.  So while there would be no
immediate deaths from gamma ray radiation, it would play havoc on the atmosphere....severe acid rain would follow, and a nuclear winter would surely follow that, with over 50% of the atmosphere
contaminated with brown NO2 gas.
So times would get tough for all of us...most plant life would
die from the low pH acid soil.
So I'll forgo the idea of a hypernova bunker...instead, store up
lots of canned food and fresh water....of course, that's a good idea
for other times of real Earthly emergencies too.

{It is interesting to note that we are overdue for a GRB....I was
reading where it is thought that the Ordovician Extinction 440 Mya
(70%) was perhaps caused by a GRB, and possibly the Great Permian Extinction (95%) of 230 Mya...so we are kind of overdue}. Just an interesting side thought. Of course, the megavolcano we call
Yellowstone Park is overdue too. The future could be very interesting.
Thanks for the update,
Clear Skies,
Tom Whiting
Erie, PA