Expert: Jayendra Upadhye - 8/5/2008

Question
QUESTION: "Eta Carina is in the large magellanic cloud, almost 100,000 ly away! "
i thought it was a star around 8000 light years away?
or am i wrong on that
anyway its probably no threat right? because its axis is pointed 45 degrees away from us? (i read it on nasa's answer site)
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/040323a.html


anyway i talked to my mom and i feel better

we both agreed that the media loves to blow stuff that will probably never harm us into a big scare fest.

and again thanks for answering my questions, it does make me feel better that humanity wont die out from such an event any time soon

take care!

ANSWER: Hi,
Nikki! So you caught that one..:)
I said that offhand, about Eta Carina, and did not bother to refresh my memory as i normally do..chiefly because it did not matter.

The point at hand was to make you feel safe!
(without lying about anything ofcourse).

I had a false memory of it being in the magllanic cloud too along with SN1987A (Sandeuleak star).

Happens all the time, and it is painful to keep "exactness". But here that was secondary, and hence this goof up!

Tell me something though...what is your area of interest?
I mean you would be graduating as what?

And what would you like to be?

Answer at leisure or email me, whichever suits you.

And thank you once again for the "rating support".

regards
Jayen

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

QUESTION: i don't really know what major im going to do atm...maybe astronomy, maybe history..not sure
--------------------------------------------
its understandable that you can't remember every detail about this stuff since its so vast...
...so sorry for the correction
but i do appreciate all the answers you gave


------------------------------------------
it said this on nasa about the eta carina star

>>"and this axis is tilted by about 45 degrees to our line of sight, which means that most of the dangerous emission would not be directed at us....However there might be enough emission to disable communication and other satellites. "

this is the last thing Im concerned about

so this means that eta carina could disable satellites with a 45 degree tilt from us???
and WR-104 is only a 16 degree tilt?? is that bad for us? :(

if you could answer this please, i'd really be in debt to you..its the last thing that's bothering me...
i really think this is the last thing of these stars that is bothering me...

thanks jayen

Answer
Hi,
Nikki, i am beginning to think either you are the most persistent girl on earth or you are pulling my leg,  now.

Which fills me with dread..err.. when you do marry, the guy would risk having the most persistently nagging wife!! So reform when there is time!!! And dont say later i didnt warn you ..;)
(cant help doing what Muttley does in that cartoon strip "Dastardly and Muttley"!  Snicker!! Hey and that reminds me of the tongue in cheek "Perils of Penelope Pitstop" & "Wacky races"..nothing like those cartoons to unwind in the middle of the night..).

Coming back to your question..

I had sent you some links on this one.
link 1:- http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/~gekko/pinwheel/tech_faq.html
link 2:- http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/03/03/wr-104-a-nearby-gamma-
link 3:- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf-Rayet_star


The point is:-
1 - The beam occurs within 12 degrees.
   The axis is within 16 degrees.
2 - The bad astronomy link i sent you earlier on (again if i remember right), or may be some other site on the web says that there will be 50% reduction of Ozone layer and result will be formation of a brownish fog of Oxide of Nitrogen in upper atmosphere, which will blot out the sunlight for a few weeks or months. (Not total dearkness mind you, but a sort of haze). We need not fear that, as Mt.Krakatoa when it blew its top (in early 1900s?), threw an entire island into the stratosphere as dust! People could read newspapers in England late into the night, due to reflected glare of sunlight off the dust!
Recently Mt.Pinatubo in the philippines reduced world average temperature by 1 deg c, something humans had taken centuries to raise!!

Yet we are alive and kicking!!

So now rest this topic, else i will have to graduate you into a sorceress that flogs dead horses back to life!! :)

So desist dear Nikki, for the life of me.

regards
Jayen