-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
Registered: Nov 2000
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posted
The threat of an asteroid collision gave us Armageddon, Deep Impact, and a whole slate of TV movies on this theme. I can't wait to see Hollywood grab a hold of this one...
Registered: Mar 1999
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"...And well, this guy, Bruce Willis, he can see gamma rays, and so NASA needs to put him and his buddies on a space shuttle..."
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
And of course, within ten minutes of the star blowing up, the "shockwaves" reach Earth and destroy all life. And everyone on Earth can see the supernova at exactly the same time it occurs to the star itself. (Remember the Veridian star from Generations?)
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Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
Well, as to the first, yeah, ok. But I'm not sure what you're getting at with the second. We see the star dim as soon as the diminished quantity of light gets to the planet.
Registered: Mar 1999
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capped
I WAS IN THE FUTURE, IT WAS TOO LATE TO RSVP
Member # 709
posted
Assuming Veridian was in the same habitable belt of the system that Earth lies in, we can assume that like Earth, it is eight light-minutes from the sun (if not, the possibility that it lies at least 4 LM out still seems likely.. not much closer than that, unless Veridian-star has a greatly different makeup). In Generations, as soon as the missile launched, the sun went dim. It took the missile much less than that time to get to the sun (possibly it had a warp field) and then, the light dimmed instantaneously.
This is of course, dramatic license, as having the audience sit for about 6 minutes while Picard and Soran stand there waiting for effects of the explosion to reach them, chatting about the weather and such. Depending on your opinion of what the shockwave was made of, it probably got there too fast also, about a minute behind the dimming (possibly a convenient-to-the-writers subspace shockwave like our good Praxis incident? at least it seemed to be on more than one axis)
And was Genesis really rotating superfast? that whole night-day thing was wierd...
No, Star Trek has never really done well with that 'science' thing
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Registered: Sep 2001
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But I have heard otherwise reasonable people insist that the movie screwed up by having the star dim, and at the same time having it get dark on the planet, which of course is so not a screwup as to be totally unworthy of praise.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Yes, sorry for not being more clear before. I did mean that that the supernova would be seen on Earth (some 100 l.y. away) at almost precisely the exact same time the star goes supernova and is witnessed by some person or thing one light second away from it.
-------------------- Is it Friday yet?
Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
I take it that "almost precisely" allows a margin of error of a hundred years?
Registered: Mar 1999
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Alpha Centauri
Usually seen somewhere in the Southern skies
Member # 338
posted
Perhaps it's a good idea to start devising some kind of planetary force field. 150 million years? That would be just right enough time to come up with a theory and to accumulate the needed building materials .
Or what about Doc's radiation inoculations?
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Registered: Jun 2000
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posted
Hmm... do you think that this shock wave could include the dreaded "antimatter radiation"? *snicker*
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
Registered: Nov 2000
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posted
Antimatter radiation? I thought that the exploding star would give out chornoton particles? Didn't Kirk use our Sun to travel back in time?
-------------------- "It speaks to some basic human needs: that there is a tomorrow, it's not all going to be over with a big splash and a bomb, that the human race is improving, that we have things to be proud of as humans." -Gene Roddenberry about Star Trek
Registered: May 1999
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