OT: Here's a happy thought...

geoschmo · #1 March 11th, 2008, 01:40 AM

I was reading this article about Wolf-Rayet , a binary star system which could potentially send a "Gamma Ray Burst" our way some day.

It occurred to me that this star could have gone nova at any point in the last 8,000 years. The rays which could be our doom could be at this second speeding towards us at 186,000 miles a second, and we wouldn't know it till they got here.

To think we may have already been killed by a gun fired at the dawn of human civilization, only we don't know it yet.

Dead planet walking.

Atrocities · #2 March 11th, 2008, 02:31 AM

Ya that was on FOX news yesterday too.

Oh well, looks like the universe is out to get us.

Ed Kolis · #3 March 11th, 2008, 01:15 PM

I bet the nova was triggered by the Xiati... they used their temporal technology to detect the virulent nature of humanity and decided to wipe us out before we spread to the stars!

Oh wait, that sounds an awful lot like a story arc on "Enterprise"... heck, the aliens in that series were called the Xindi, weren't they???

AgentZero · #4 March 11th, 2008, 08:10 PM

Quote:

Atrocities said:
Ya that was on FOX news yesterday too.

Oh well, looks like the universe is out to get us.

This cheers me up considerably. If Fox News is telling me to worry about something, odds are it's something I don't need to worry about.

And it's not like I'll ever know if I was wrong.

Randallw · #5 March 11th, 2008, 09:26 PM

I read a short story once where mankind was conquering the galaxy so an alien race captured one of our ships to find where Earth was and sent a ship back through time with orders to destroy Earth. However instead of targetting the 3rd planet from the sun they targeted the 6th planet in. Which is why we have the asteroid belt.

narf poit chez BOOM · #6 March 12th, 2008, 01:05 AM

No point in worrying about things I can't change.

Randallw · #7 March 12th, 2008, 01:51 AM

As the philosopher, who was a Cynic, a Stoic and a Epicurean, said

"You can't trust a person as far as you can throw them, but what can you do about it?. Nothing, so why worry. You're buying?, mines a pint. Thanks"

Fyron · #8 March 12th, 2008, 01:58 AM

Quote:

AgentZero said:
This cheers me up considerably. If TV News is telling me to worry about something, odds are it's something I don't need to worry about.

There, fixed that for ya.

AgentZero · #9 March 13th, 2008, 07:58 PM

Thanks Fy.

dmm · #10 April 28th, 2008, 04:30 PM

Quote:

Randallw said:
I read a short story once where mankind was conquering the galaxy so an alien race captured one of our ships to find where Earth was and sent a ship back through time with orders to destroy Earth. However instead of targetting the 3rd planet from the sun they targeted the 6th planet in. Which is why we have the asteroid belt.

You mean the 5th planet. Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, asteroids, Jupiter, ....
But anyway, are you telling us that "Star Trek: First Contact" stole its plot from a short story? I am shocked --shocked!