Re: So it *could* happen here...
Damien Broderick (d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au)
Thu, 08 Jul 1999 13:16:27 +0000
At 09:27 PM 7/07/99 +0200, Anders wrote:
>It also shows that nearby supernovae aren't necessarily
>planetkillers. As far as I know there was no major extinction the last
>million years.
No, but if you're inside a relativistic starship (or time-machine, in my
fanciful version in DREAMING DRAGONS), that's a lot of compressed sleet all
at once... I get more and more worried about the hazard of travelling
fast. Nano streams catapulted to near c, the front-runners taking the
ablation shock (but maybe, alas, adding to it in secondaries), sounds like
maybe the only plan that's safe against wear&tear.
Damien Broderick