Can a Supernova Cause Mass Extinction? | Hacker News Reader

Can a Supernova Cause Mass Extinction?

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All the ways extinction is possible helps to answer Fermi’s paradox. Asteroids, nuclear war, disease, supernova, etc. I was just reading that NASA is getting closer to its [asteroid defense system](https://www.nasa.gov/planetarydefense/dart). It’s like civilizations are in a race to get technologically advanced enough to protect against all the ways they can be extinguished. I imagine we would one day catalog all of the potential supernovas near us to a high degree of certainty. Hopefully, if we found an imminent one, we would be advanced enough to take mitigating steps or just leave the planet.

Also volcanos and huge solar storms. I think they are underestimated, at least on earth for causing local and mass exinctions. We don’t really have any defense for most of these and nothing on the horizon. :shrug

Only if the mass extinctions happen fast/regularly enough.

We don’t really know how long it takes for intelligence to evolve, or how long a interstellar civilisation to develop, since we only have one example of the former and zero of the latter.

It's nice to read an article like this that doesn't try to invent some controversy. It looks like a supernova could cause a disruption large enough to cause an extinction. No, there's not enough evidence to say it actually. Yes, it is an interesting idea and if anyone has anything to add go for it.

A good story has some fight in it. Not every theory does and that's ok.

Isn't this one of those things that's obviously true?

For one thing, supernovae can release gamma ray bursts, which could easily sterilize a region of space. For another, the ejection of material itself could directly affect nearby systems.

Personally I think the more interesting aspects is how, in a certain way, supernovae are _needed_ for complex life as this largely seems to be the source for elements heavier than iron.

Isn't it kind of amazing that there's a bunch of material on earth that only exists because of supernovae and even the merger of neutron stars?

I think the title of the article is rather poor.

It should have been called something like, "Could Past Supernovae Have Caused Historic Mass Extinctions?", Which is really what the article is concerned with.

Granted, not nearly so catchy and not nearly so evocative of pending events....

Interesting fact: We can tell the headline is inaccurate without looking at the article because it violates Betteridge’s Law of Headlines.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headli...

To be honest, my first thought before reading the article was: Well...yeah...I'd assume if your sun went supernova you'd probably go extinct.

The article was a nice read though. I've read a few thing claiming similar theories, but it was usually amongst a bunch of fairly unscientific ummm...stuff...to put it nicely....

It was nice to see the idea explained in a logical scientific way that made sense.

No one disputes that one, if the Sun turned into a super nova it would definitely take out the Earth :-). And we know that a star going nova in the Large Magellanic Cluster (nearest galaxy to the Milkyway) would not cause one[1], so we've got a set of boundary conditions to start with. Next step is to iterate between those extremes to come up with a more accurate answer.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SN_1987A

q: could this affect the Drake equation, i.e. if supernovae happen every X years could this partly account for the absence of life?

One of those rare scientific questions where I hope we never have a definitive answer.

Mutations? Perhaps this is the way humans came about?

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