[Cannikin]

The Capella system is a very large and complicated system. In the center there is a binary star couple of two orange giants revolving around their common center of gravity. Towards the outside of the system there are up to 8 seperate, smaller stars orbiting the two central ones.

Now try to explain the supernova scenario with that in mind

[Executor]

Assuming the masses of the 8 outer stars are quite small compared to the two large ones, they'll probably all be expelled from the system. The binary stars will stay together as long as the ejected mass from the exploding star is less than half of the combined, pre-supernova masses of the two stars.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by LtNarol
Well, yes, it could.  Radiation as we all know is a form of energy/matter and since energy can not be created nor destroyed, we rule out the possibility of the FS2 Capella supernova's artificial origin generating any more energy than simply what is put in by the Sathani.  This means that yes, while the amount of radiation could go up, it would at most be equal to that of the normal capella supernova plus whatever is put into it by the Sathani.  That would still spread itself thin well within 36 lightyears.

Your quote is wrong. Energy can be created or destroyed but only by conversion to or from matter. Who's to say that the subspace processes used to trigger the supernova didn`t involve or cause some degree of total conversion. The maximum amount of energy that could be put out by the supernova is that contained in capella's mass + that put in by the shivans. Betespete's already worked that amount out for me and it's huge.

 Even if you don`t rely on total conversion (And I don`t) the normal processes which trigger a supernova were not followed in this case. We're deep in the realms of sci-fi here and I don`t think it's too much of a stretch to say that what the shivans did resulted in a supernova that was 2 or 3 times more powerful than a normal one would have been. The supernova doesn`t even need to be more powerful over all. The supernova could be richer in gamma rays and x-rays but poorer in terms of mass ejected (thereby keeping the energy output of the supernova the same as a normal one) Who's to say?


Lastly and most importantly I suggested a larger (or smaller) than normal supernova only as a way of scaling the damage to other systems. You don`t need to do this. I`ve read tons of articles by trained astrophysicists that say that supernovae are a danger to surrounding systems.

Example 1

Example 2

And I`m certainly not going to argue with them that they must be wrong I only suggested scalling the nova up or down as a way of damaging nearby systems less or damaging systems further away. According to the few links I`ve found anything within 30LY is in deep trouble anyway.

[kasperl]

i'm gonna read the articles today or tommorow, soi'll be back after that to say what i think, btw, as anyone translatd the oorignial article, i'm pretty curious about your opinions.

[QuantumDelta]

Originally posted by Executor
Assuming the masses of the 8 outer stars are quite small compared to the two large ones, they'll probably all be expelled from the system. The binary stars will stay together as long as the ejected mass from the exploding star is less than half of the combined, pre-supernova masses of the two stars.

Mostly correct, I'm not going to comment on the whole thread, because I think some of that Math is correct, most of the answers are already here...

What I do have to say, is that the present stars, and other celestial bodies (I still refuse to believe they're all stars, it's a well known fact that Jupiter actually EMITS energy, so it is possible that those 8 other bodies are super-gas giants, Of course this is unpopular scientific conjecture, so don't pay much attention to it ) a very large quantity of the mass, and energy sprayed out from the supernova, would be absorbed by these bodies, considering the enormous gravitational forces that are balanced in that system, it's also likely the explosion would result in more 'streamers' like a Gyser (that doesn't go off regularly....just the once) being aimed in multiple directions because the rock is in the way in the other directions, primitive example I know, but if the star that went supernova (...hell it wouldn't even be super nova, it would just be nova and form a planetary nebula, unless the SJ's actually gave it more energy then was available, planetary stars, like our own, do not get large enough to create super nova's, even when they are towards the end of their cycles and the elements they contain are EXTREMELY Heavy...) in the centre of the system and the other bodies were spaced equi-distantly around it, then it would most likely be that about 60-70% of the energy from the nova wouldn't even escape the system, and that's not even accounting for the amount that's absorbed by the Oort Cloud, so we'll call it 70% including the Oort, take another 5 off for the distance between the systems and the possible dark matter encountered between them, THEN take off another 10% for the next Oort cloud, which would leave you with about 15% of the original blast, at least 10% of this would be easily handlable by the atmosphere of a planet like Earth, so long as it's not sufficiently thinner, there would only be 5% left to do damage, now the unfortunate thing about all this conjecture, is I really can't garantee the numbers AND beyond that, can't tell you how much it will affect our ecosystems.
What I can tell you, is the remaining energy, will primarily be Gamma, probably talking about 60% of it, then about 20-30 would be xray, the rest would be heat/light..

Of course I'm guessing, but it doesn't need to be taken as gospal

[kasperl]

it sounds pretty good, but i still think the damage is pretty high. i'm currently doeing some reading nt his, so i'll be back with more.

[karajorma]

I keep telling you. I`m not talking about the supernova destroying Earth or anything! I`m talking about gamma rays wiping out the ozone layer etc.

Once that happens high energy UV from the sun would be enough to wipe out all higher life on Earth that couldn`t find a way to protect itself.

[CP5670]

I don't know much physics (I'm a pure math guy ) but let me see if I can explain some stuff at least qualitatively...

The black hole possibility can be ruled out, since it needs to exceed about three solar masses for the condensation to occur. However you will very likely get a neutron star at the core of the explosion. It will not have nearly as much mass as the original star, but the mass will be very tightly packed together, and the angular momentum generated by its incredibly fast rotation will also create a considerable centrifugal force, drawing even more stuff in.

On a side note, I remember that there was some FS1 campaign (can't remember the name) where the story told that the Shivans somehow harvested this ultra-dense material from the neutron star's surface and used it to build their ships.

Does anyone have the stats for the other star in the pair? If it is about the same size, mass, and so on, its outermost gases will start getting sucked up by the nearby neutron star over time.

Any planets within the system would obviously be completely vaporized into dust in a few minutes, but outside that it is a bit harder to say, since the shockwave will have dissipated and cooled quite a bit by the time it reaches another GTVA system.

Also, keep in mind that the Capella supernova was generated "artificially" and most stars of that mass would probably not explode like that, so it is possible that it will exhibit slightly different properties.

That's about all I know about this stuff.

I keep telling you. I`m not talking about the supernova destroying Earth or anything! I`m talking about gamma rays wiping out the ozone layer etc.

Once that happens high energy UV from the sun would be enough to wipe out all higher life on Earth that couldn`t find a way to protect itself.

Well by that time we probably would not be very reliant on the ozone layer anymore (if it is still around), seeing as there is a huge space trade economy by the FS2 period...

[karajorma]

Originally posted by CP5670
Well by that time we probably would not be very reliant on the ozone layer anymore (if it is still around), seeing as there is a huge space trade economy by the FS2 period...

I don`t see how a space trade economy will save you from all life on a particular planet being wiped out. Even with trade ships bring food and other materials which used to grow on the planet you would have a hard time feeding the population of a small planet let alone something like Earth's population. Even if if you do manage to ship enough food and put all the colonists in domes you still end up with a world reliant on outside help to survive and with lots of refugees leaving it.
 That makes a great campaign setting

[CP5670]

yeah, I was basically thinking domed and underground cities; shouldn't be too hard to accomplish when they have millions of spaceships going everywhere. (and in space, the solar radiation is much more of a problem, so if they found a way to tackle that then no ozone layer is needed anymore) But there would certainly be some effect due to the radiation itself.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by CP5670
yeah, I was basically thinking domed and underground cities; shouldn't be too hard to accomplish when they have millions of spaceships going everywhere. (and in space, the solar radiation is much more of a problem, so if they found a way to tackle that then no ozone layer is needed anymore) But there would certainly be some effect due to the radiation itself.

Yeah but in space they solved the problem by putting everyone inside ships with thick armour that can survive an antimatter powered weapon going of next to it. Can`t see them doing that with a planet somehow

Anyway my main point is although the GTVA could do things about the supernovas effect on their systems it would have an effect (especially on systems close to the nova)

[QuantumDelta]

Actually, any planet we wanted to colonise would probably need to be ecosided, you'd need to rip out all the old stuff, right down to the bacteria because they wouldn't be compatible with our biology (well, I think the chances are 99ish%)...so CP's pretty much correct anyway

I know you meant radiation, Kara hehe, the point is, the 5% that's left is the really high energy, and no mass particles, the Gamma/X-ray which is the most dangerous to the gene sequences in the body, and to other things like electronics, your point is very valid, i'm just trying to say there wouldn't be that much left..hehe..

It also wouldn't be too hard to construct a large (but thin) shield around the nova side of the planet, (it wasn't a supernova, i'm serious, go read up, that star never could have gone super nova ever, no matter what the shivan's did to it.... there's two types of novae, super and normal, our star will do a normal, generally shrinking back into a white drawf.

BTW, Kara, although your theory is very good, and by that I mean, one that I would have put money on a few years ago, the only way subspace would ever work, is if no subspace energy or matter could possibly interact with reality, it's extremely difficult to explain why, but ya'd need to go look up Unified Field Theory...

This thread has a lot of good theories...hehe

[karajorma]

Originally posted by QuantumDelta
It also wouldn't be too hard to construct a large (but thin) shield around the nova side of the planet, (it wasn't a supernova, i'm serious, go read up, that star never could have gone super nova ever, no matter what the shivan's did to it.... there's two types of novae, super and normal, our star will do a normal, generally shrinking back into a white drawf.

BTW, Kara, although your theory is very good, and by that I mean, one that I would have put money on a few years ago, the only way subspace would ever work, is if no subspace energy or matter could possibly interact with reality, it's extremely difficult to explain why, but ya'd need to go look up Unified Field Theory...

I'm well aware that Capella is in completely the wrong part of a stars lifespan to go supernova but since that's what [V] did to it we have to live with it and accept that Capella went supernova.
 I don`t think it mearly blew off it's outer layers as from what I`ve understood the transition from giant to dwarf takes many thousends of years and the blowing off of layers is a slow process completely like the violent end of capella in the cutscene. So we are left with the fact that capella went supernova impossible as that is and left with the problem of trying to explain how that could happen
 IIRC in a star there are two main forces acting. The pull of gravity wants to contract the star into a much smaller space. The pressure exerted by the photons leaving the core prevents that from happening.
 In a supernova the star stops producing photons cause Iron is the the most stable element and trying to fuse that actually requires energy rather than giving it out. The force of gravity wins and the star collapses.

Okay, so suppose the shivans somehow removed the photon pressure? Subspace disturbances were noted before the star went nova. Suppose the shivans were creating trillions of tiny entrances to subspace and sieving out the photons? Now there is nothing to counteract the pull of gravity and the star collapses.

What effect that would have on the supernova's damage both insystem and out of it is beyond me though

EDIT : Every definition I could find of a nova has nothing to do with single stars like the sun but instead refers to the accretion of matter on a white dwarf from a companion star (usually a red giant). Can anyone clarify if it is incorrect to say that the sun will go nova towards the end of its life?

[QuantumDelta]

What I mean, is there are two types of star.
A Planetary one, these tend to be smaller, like our star.. and
An Stellar one, probably wrong name, stellar stars are like Betelguese, (gah...sp) these are MASSIVE in comparison to our own sun, even before they become fat red giants, they are huge before they expand...

goes to look for linkage

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap001107.html
SuperNova Remenant.
Just to show how far the shockwave for Capella will spread (Actually it'll be NOTHING like that big, just a reference).

From the way they used the Capella System, I could be about 75% sure this star, the one they 'blew up' would be a star which would fall into the less then 8times solar masses which would prevent it going truly supernova, no matter what the shivan's did to it, actually looking at it from a purely scientific view, it would be impossible to make a star go supernova unless you injected it with something, or manipulated it somehow, into seriously burning the hell out of all it's elements then just running through it's life cycle faster...I would suspect the reason why they might do this, is actually hinted very obviously, in the final video clip with the reference to another universe, because of the subspace disturbance, and the SJ's jumping out, I could QUITE Easily believe that the shivan's did this because a supernova's explosion is actually prompted by even more gravity then a blackhole can produce...(in one very short burst) which is probably represented as the point that the star is glowing green, that gravity could then be springboarded on with subspace to catapult you into another dimension, or universe, your choice (there is a difference, dimensions are carried within the same universe..).


http://observe.arc.nasa.gov/nasa/space/stellardeath/stellardeath_intro.html This one has a fairly accute explanation. (Hit contents)

http://observe.arc.nasa.gov/nasa/space/stellardeath/stellardeath_2.html specifically there.

Between the two webby's there's enough data...hehe...


http://imgsrc.stsci.edu/op/pubinfo/pr/1998/08/content/sn1987.mov
me being nice

[StratComm]

Originally posted by karajorma
EDIT : Every definition I could find of a nova has nothing to do with single stars like the sun but instead refers to the accretion of matter on a white dwarf from a companion star (usually a red giant). Can anyone clarify if it is incorrect to say that the sun will go nova towards the end of its life?

The sun won't go nova, it will become a red giant and then shed its outer layers as you said.  Still bad news for Earth, as the sun's corona would extend out past the asteroid belt, but no violent explosion would occur.

As for Capella, looking at the info :V: provided in the last few command briefings, it would appear that the Sath fleet was using a subspace compression wave to induce the Capella supernova.  And lets say the radiation would damage any system within 30 lightyears; I don't think that any of the FS2 inhabated systems are within 30 lightyears of Capella anyway, so I can't see that it'd matter that much.

[QuantumDelta]

I originally thought a subspace compression wave would be the right answer too, however it just doesnt have the right chemistry to do it, 'subspace' by very nature, cannot interupt normal space, it takes a reality accelerater to push something into subspace AND Keep it there...

It is possible that v wanted to use subspace that way though..it did look like it, and it's how I looked at it before I kinda did the science on it, seeming as 'subspace compression' would make the stars atmosphere much more volitile (thing's are more likely to react in higher pressure environments, so it would increase the speed the star moved through it's life cycle).. your point is well taken, just that science wouldn't let it happen, it's probably what V wanted to do though...heh...

[StratComm]

Originally posted by QuantumDelta
I originally thought a subspace compression wave would be the right answer too, however it just doesnt have the right chemistry to do it, 'subspace' by very nature, cannot interupt normal space, it takes a reality accelerater to push something into subspace AND Keep it there...

It is possible that v wanted to use subspace that way though..it did look like it, and it's how I looked at it before I kinda did the science on it, seeming as 'subspace compression' would make the stars atmosphere much more volitile (thing's are more likely to react in higher pressure environments, so it would increase the speed the star moved through it's life cycle).. your point is well taken, just that science wouldn't let it happen, it's probably what V wanted to do though...heh...

Since :V: didn't really follow real science anyway, and that their definition of subspace (or any real definition of subspace for that matter) is so hazy sort of indicates that it can do whatever :V: needed it to do.  Guess they never thought we'd be hashing out the principles behind their plotlines

[Sesquipedalian]

Originally posted by QuantumDelta
'subspace' by very nature, cannot interupt normal space,

Bzzt.  Go directly to jail.  Do not pass go, do not collect $200.

http://astron.berkeley.edu/~bmendez/html/time.html

See the part about traversable wormholes specifically--almost entirely like FS subspace.  There is, however, the small problem of temporal shift...  but as long as the nodes don't move much relative to each other and aren't in widely different gravitational fields, the temporal effects will be minimal.  All we have to do is find a way to produce matter with negative energy (a tall order, that).

[kode]

Originally posted by Sesquipedalian
All we have to do is find a way to produce matter with negative energy (a tall order, that).

aw... is that all? I'll have it ready next tuesday.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by QuantumDelta
From the way they used the Capella System, I could be about 75% sure this star, the one they 'blew up' would be a star which would fall into the less then 8times solar masses which would prevent it going truly supernova, no matter what the shivan's did to it, actually looking at it from a purely scientific view, it would be impossible to make a star go supernova unless you injected it with something, or manipulated it somehow, into seriously burning the hell out of all it's elements then just running through it's life cycle faster...I would suspect the reason why they might do this, is actually hinted very obviously, in the final video clip with the reference to another universe, because of the subspace disturbance, and the SJ's jumping out, I could QUITE Easily believe that the shivan's did this because a supernova's explosion is actually prompted by even more gravity then a blackhole can produce...(in one very short burst) which is probably represented as the point that the star is glowing green, that gravity could then be springboarded on with subspace to catapult you into another dimension, or universe, your choice (there is a difference, dimensions are carried within the same universe..).

Again my knowledge of physics isn`t quite high enough to speak of this stuff as a certainty but AFAIK the only reason that stars with smaller mass don`t go supernova isn`t directly connected with their mass.
 Smaller stars aren`t massive enough to carry out fusion on iron. iron is the most stable element. Unlike the elements lighter than it fusion of iron is endothermic (i.e instead of giving out energy it takes energy to occur). When this happens instead of giving out heat and light the core of the star begins to take it in. Without the pressure of the heat leaving the star gravity takes over and compresses the star further. However unless the star is really heavy gravity can`t compress the star after the electrons have been compressed into the nuclei of their respective atoms to form neutrons. The outer layers bounce off of the newly formed neutron star and explode outwards.

A similar process will take place in our sun as it finishes it's red dwarf phase. The sun will find that it can`t fuse carbon atoms and will contract to a white dwarf but since this process is slower than with iron stars the size of our sun don`t go supernova.

Astronomers say that a star the size of Capella can`t supernova but the main reason for that is because there is no natural way for the star to undergo the sudden collapse required to set one off.
 However since we`ve established that the direct cause of a supernova is the sudden loss of the internal pressure if the shivans have some unnatural way of removing or diminishing this internal pressure they should be able to cause any star to supernova regardless of its size.
 As for how they did it I can think of another way besides the one I`ve already mentioned and this one is more simple. Open a jump point inside the star and push in a large iron planetoid. The helium at the centre of the star is displaced and when the star trys to fuse it's new core it get's nowhere fast resulting in on hell of a big bang.

Originally posted by StratComm
The sun won't go nova, it will become a red giant and then shed its outer layers as you said.  Still bad news for Earth, as the sun's corona would extend out past the asteroid belt, but no violent explosion would occur.

I thought as much but I`ve heard so many people talk about the sun going nova at the end of its lifespan that I was beginning to wonder if I had got it wrong.

Originally posted by StratComm
And lets say the radiation would damage any system within 30 lightyears; I don't think that any of the FS2 inhabated systems are within 30 lightyears of Capella anyway, so I can't see that it'd matter that much.

Since [V] obviously made up their science as they went along I figure no one can really complain about a little artistic licence. I say let the supernova be a problem to GTVA systems if that would add to your campaigns and ignore it if it wouldn`t