[QUOTE=freebeard;589026]
Let me get the lights
No posts for 48hrs, every thread goes zombie eventually.
A solar nano-nova is a much more interesting design problem than mere rising temperatures. The latest episode from Suspicious 0bservers is about wind. It divides the the globe into three [five?] zones because the change in angular momentum, if the crust decelerates, has more effect at the equator. For one value of un-survivable apocalypse the zones are — at least one 100mph wind at the poles, multiple 150-300mph winds at mid-latitudes and at least one 1000mph wind at the equator.
Surviving a 1000mph wind (with gravel) is a very tight design constraint, but 150-300mph winds sounds achievable. It would be a low-arched dome with a significant [ablative] ground cover and wedge-shaped berms occluding the entrance or windows. A detail cribbed from nuclear blast proof designs.[/
I watched a 24-lecture series on Radio Astronomy,by the lead astronomer at the US National Radio Observatory.
Evidently,our type of star is not physically capable of any form of nova-type event,as occurs with large,fast-burning stars which blow off their surface,then collapse into a neutron-star or black-hole,maintaining jets of relative velocity ions or reverberating shockwaves of gas and dust.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Solar flares propagate as spherical shockwaves,which have an inverse-square power function.1/divided by the radius-squared.
You can calculate the difference in power of a solar flair at Earth's surface,by comparing the surface area of a sphere with a radius of 93,000,000 miles,compared to the surface radius of the Sun's photosphere.
It gives you the dilution factor of the energy we'd encounter here on Earth,as compared to the energy leaving the Sun.It's a pittance.
Any ions reaching the ionosphere would mostly be shunted into the poles for spectacular aurorae,by the action of the magnetosphere.
Actual energetic 'dust' particles would succumb to aerodynamic vaporization as they came in through an increasingly-dense atmosphere(Space Shuttle Columbia),precipitating out as ash.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
A coronal mass ejection would extinguish all life except for perhaps some microbial forms deep underground.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Earth IS overdue for a Gamma-ray burst from a supernova,and if we were to be in the path of one of those,it would sterilize the Earth.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
But as to a mini-nova,science says that it's impossible.
Red Dwarf,one day,absolutely.
We'll be long extinct by the time that happens,as Earth will have long moved beyond the 'Goldi-locks zone' of habitability.
I hate it when that happens!
