Related papers: Disturbance Ecology from nearby Supernovae
There is now solid experimental evidence of at least one supernova explosion within 100 pc of Earth within the last few million years, from measurements of the short-lived isotope 60Fe in widespread deep-ocean samples, as well as in the…
Recent results have strongly confirmed that multiple supernovae happened at distances ~100 pc consisting of two main events: one at 1.7 to 3.2 million years ago, and the other at 6.5 to 8.7 million years ago. These events are said to be…
Kepler observations have uncovered the existence of a large number of close-in exoplanets and serendipitously of stellar superflares with emissions several orders of magnitude higher than those observed on the Sun. The interaction between…
The spectacular outbursts of energy associated with supernovae (SNe) have long motivated research into their potentially hazardous effects on Earth and analogous environments. Much of this research has focused primarily on the atmospheric…
The extreme luminosity and their fairly unique temporal behaviour have made supernovae a superb tool to measure distances in the universe. As complex astrophysical events they provide interesting insights into explosion physics, explosive…
A nearby supernova (SN) explosion could have negatively influenced life on Earth, maybe even been responsible for mass extinctions. Mass extinction poses a significant extinction of numerous species on Earth, as recorded in the…
We examine the possibility that a nearby supernova explosion could have caused one or more of the mass extinctions identified by palaeontologists. We discuss the likely rate of such events in the light of the recent identification of…
Supernova explosions are one of the most energetic--and potentially lethal--phenomena in the Universe. Scientists have speculated for decades about the possible consequences for life on Earth of a nearby supernova, but plausible candidates…
The explosion of a supernovae (SN) represents the sudden injection of about 10^51 ergs of thermal and mechanical energy in a small region of space, causing the formation of powerful shock waves that propagate through the interstellar medium…
Recent 60Fe results have suggested that the estimated distances of supernovae in the last few million years should be reduced from 100 pc to 50 pc. Two events or series of events are suggested, one about 2.7 million years to 1.7 million…
Observations of open star clusters in the solar neighborhood are used to calculate local supernova (SN) rates for the past 510 million years (Myr). Peaks in the SN rates match passages of the Sun through periods of locally increased cluster…
Supernovae are the dominant source of stellar feedback, which plays an important role in regulating galaxy formation and evolution. While this feedback process is still quite uncertain, it is probably not due to individual supernova…
In this chapter, we present an overview of sources of biologically relevant astrophysical radiation and effects of that radiation on organisms and their habitats. We consider both electromagnetic and particle radiation, with an emphasis on…
Cosmic radiation backgrounds are a constraint on life, and their distribution will affect the Galactic Habitable Zone. Life on Earth has developed in the context of these backgrounds, and characterizing event rates will elaborate the…
Astrophysical ionizing radiation events such as supernovae, gamma-ray bursts, and solar proton events have been recognized as a potential threat to life on Earth, primarily through depletion of stratospheric ozone and subsequent increase in…
We study the propagation of ultra-high energy cosmic ray nuclei through the background of cosmic microwave and intergalactic infrared photons, using recent re-estimates for the density of the last ones. We perform a detailed Monte Carlo…
High energy cosmic ray jets from nearby mergers or accretion induced collapse (AIC) of neutron stars (NS) that hit the atmosphere can produce lethal fluxes of atmospheric muons at ground level, underground and underwater, destroy the ozone…
Recent data indicate one or more moderately nearby supernovae in the early Pleistocene, with additional events likely in the Miocene. This has motivated more detailed computations, using new information about the nature of supernovae and…
The Cherenkov Telescope Array is expected to lead to the detection of many new supernova remnants in the TeV and multi-TeV range. In addition to the individual study of each SNR, the study of these objects as a population can help…
We investigated the potential biological impacts at Earth's surface of stratospheric O3 depletion caused by nearby supernovae known to have occurred about 2.5 and 8 million years ago at about 50 pc distance. New and previously published…