FYI about Supernovas:<p><a href="https://what-if.xkcd.com/73/" rel="nofollow">https://what-if.xkcd.com/73/</a><p>---<p>Which of the following would be brighter, in terms of the amount of energy delivered to your retina:<p>1) A supernova, seen from as far away as the Sun is from the Earth, or<p>2) The detonation of a hydrogen bomb pressed against your eyeball?<p>A: Applying the physicist rule of thumb suggests that the supernova is brighter. And indeed, it is ... by nine orders of magnitude.<p>---<p>There are some suggestions that a close supernova would emit enough neutrinos to affect life on Earth. I worked on the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory, for my M.Sc. Roughly, about 10^22 neutrinos go through an average building in a day, and maybe <i>one</i> interacts with the building.
Anyone else think of <i>Look to Windward</i>?<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Look_to_Windward" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Look_to_Windward</a>
anytime I imagine those absolutely gigantic proportions of these very violent events, i feel tiny and completely irrelevant in grand scheme of universe. which is exactly how it is :)
It would be so depressing if the peak of alien weaponry is a device that causes a sun to nova, and we are watching an interstellar version of WW III that happened a million years ago as two otherwise intelligent species decided to decimate each other.