Supernovae: how far away should one be?

Consider the 1987 supernova.

1) From what minimum distance would the prudent astronaut view such an
event?

2) At what distance from the earth would that supernova have lit up the
night side of the planet to more or less the same brightness as the sun?
And would there have been sufficient radiation outside the visible band
to have caused damage to life?

Cheers,

--

Tim

Tim Streater wrote:
Consider the 1987 supernova.

1) From what minimum distance would the prudent astronaut view such an
event?

2) At what distance from the earth would that supernova have lit up
the night side of the planet to more or less the same brightness as
the sun?

The magnitude of the sun is about -27. In a reference I found, the average
absolute (blue) magnitude of supernovae is around -19.
Plugging these figures into the relationship between manitude, absolute
magnitude and distance gives a distance of around 0.25 pc for the supernova
to have the same visual brightness as the Sun, or just under a light year


And would there have been sufficient radiation outside the
visible band to have caused damage to life?


I don't know without researching the matter, but at a guess, there'd be more
radiation at lower wavelengths than visible light. I wouldn't like to be too
close! I'm sure someone else will be able to give you a better answer.


DaveL

On Mon, 16 Feb 2004 13:44:37 +0000, Tim Streater wrote:

Consider the 1987 supernova.

1) From what minimum distance would the prudent astronaut view such an
event?

2) At what distance from the earth would that supernova have lit up the
night side of the planet to more or less the same brightness as the sun?
And would there have been sufficient radiation outside the visible band
to have caused damage to life?

See this site for the effects of a nearby supernova

http://a188-L009.rit.edu/richmond/answers/snrisks.txt

--

Gautam Majumdar

Please send e-mails to

"Gautam Majumdar" wrote in message
newsan.2004.02.16.18.42.45.788251.2977@XSPAMfree uk.com...

See this site for the effects of a nearby supernova

http://a188-L009.rit.edu/richmond/answers/snrisks.txt

--
I think the URL has got corrupted. Probably should be this one?

http://stupendous.rit.edu/richmond/answers/snrisks.txt

Robin