Here's the sort of question I never thought I'd ever be nerd enough to ask. Yeah I know. There's a Trekker born every minute. But sometimes, these sorts of things need answering.

OK.

Brushes off Chee-to dust and pats down smiley face Watchmen t-shirt.

We know from multiple sources (most recently an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise) that the planet Vulcan orbits within the star system 40 Eridani, which is 16 light years from Earth. We also know that the Romulans are descended from the Vulcans, and that they left to found their own colony thousands of years ago. Whether they left via FTL or at relativistic speeds is still not known, but in any case, it's unlikely that they could have travelled very far.

So. In Star Trek we learn that Romulus was destroyed by a nearby supernova explosion. The farthest away you can be from a supernova explosion and suffer any damage is about 30 light years, though I'm sure that's negotiable.

So. Is it physically possible, given a plausible distance from Romulus to Vulcan, for Romulus to have been affected by a supernova-capable star? Which are the nearest to Earth and how likely are any of them to blow in the next few centuries?

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There is a growing tendancy to think of Man as a rational, thinking being, which is absurd.- Marvin the Martian.

It's gotten to the point where careful investigation is needed just to tell parody from reality. I think that means reality is broken.- Noclevername.

I tracked down a map (which I'm going to assume is at least reasonably accurate) that charts Federation and Romulan space.

Earth's at the origin, Vulcan is a bit 'south'. Assuming that distance is 16 light-years and the map is to scale, then Romulus (in the 'northwest' of the empire) would be about 60 light-years from Earth, and even further from Vulcan. I also note that it's out beyond Gamma Tucanae, which is 70 light-years from Earth.

Wait, we do? Oh, I am sooooo not watching that movie.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Oh. Right. Kinda thought everyone would have seen it by now.

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There is a growing tendancy to think of Man as a rational, thinking being, which is absurd.- Marvin the Martian.

It's gotten to the point where careful investigation is needed just to tell parody from reality. I think that means reality is broken.- Noclevername.

But said SN was said to be large enough to destroy the whole galaxy as I recall. That should both drastically increase the lethal radius and limit the number of candidates.

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I'm not evil.
An evil person would do the things I think up.

Yes but Star Trek apologists (like me sometimes,) willing to cut the series some slack (sometimes) - have implied that the phrase "destroy the galaxy" was not so much a scientific term as a galactic-political general statement. A kind of 'domino-theory-of-the-stars' implying that if one important world is destroyed, it would effect other worlds in terms of trade, politics and refugees, causing wars, etc., leading to the economic collapse of the Federation and other Empires.

Then again - Star Trek is full of oddball insights - and while acknowledging that it is a great show overall, I generally don't cut them as much slack in the various TV series for curing many problems with beams of energy.

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"Insignificant molehill sometimes more important than conspicuous mountain." - Charlie Chan

I'm sure everyone who wanted to has.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

I want to see it but haven't yet.

Nick

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--
Nick Theodorakis

Me either. Just can't find the time.

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Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein

Ditto.

OK, I'm changing the title now

When was Romulus said to have been destroyed? Was the planet
destroyed, or just the Romulan culture, with the planet essentially
untouched? In real life, a supernova could be really, really bad news
for anyone in Space throughout an awfully large volume, but have
no significant effect on a nearby planet's surface, because of the
protection given by miles of atmosphere.

Are you sure it was a supernova, not just a plain nova?

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

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http://www.FreeMars.org/jeff/

"I find astronomy very interesting, but I wouldn't if I thought we
were just going to sit here and look." -- "Van Rijn"

"The other planets? Well, they just happen to be there, but the
point of rockets is to explore them!" -- Kai Yeves

Give it up, parallax. Star Drek was nothing but bad science from end to end.

Jeff, it was called a supernova, and there was a sequence showing Romulus being eroded away by the blast.

Fred

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"For shame, gentlemen, pack your evidence a little better against another time."
-- John Dryden, "The Vindication of The Duke of Guise" 1684

Then how could the camera survive, huh? HUH? [/childish]

(I really wish people would think of adding spoiler tags when posting, considering that people all over the world read here)

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"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge" -- Charles Darwin
"Your right to hold an opinion is not being contested. Your expectation that it be taken seriously is." -- Jason Thompson
Meet the OOONG TOE.

Hopefully, anyone looking at it now will see "spoiler" in the thread title.

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The Leif Ericson Cruiser

Yep, if it was close enough for that, Romulus must have been a recently terraformed planet. It's amazing it was habitable at all, being so near a massive, rapidly evolving star. Collapsing the star into a black hole wouldn't help - that in itself would be a very energetic event.

I went into the movie knowing the science would be stupid (that's not new for Star Trek), but there was just so much bad science.

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The Leif Ericson Cruiser

Yes! No intention to diss hhEb09'1 at all, and thanks for his action. I meant for people to be more careful about such things on first posting.

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"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge" -- Charles Darwin
"Your right to hold an opinion is not being contested. Your expectation that it be taken seriously is." -- Jason Thompson
Meet the OOONG TOE.

Agreed. Always try to remember to be careful if you're posting a spoiler (though, I have to admit, I've forgotten once or twice myself over the years, and was justifiably criticized for it).

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The Leif Ericson Cruiser

One bit of physics they got right: 200 year old Corvettes might still run, but they can't fly.

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"Insignificant molehill sometimes more important than conspicuous mountain." - Charlie Chan

Actually there wasn't as much bad science as I thought there would be. And watching Trek for good science is kinda like watching Doctor Who for good science... Maybe it's because of the era I grew up there WAS no science in sci fi tv shows and I learned massive suspension of disbelief... Even Phil's review was rather praiseworthy of what they did get right...

If you're wondering how he eats and breathes
And other science facts,
Just repeat to yourself "It's just a show,
I should really just relax"

I'm not saying there shouldn't be good science in TV and movies, i'm just not holding my breath.

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"Ignorance has caused more calamity than malignity" H.G. Wells

"Getting lost is part of exploring." Uniqua in "Backyardigans-Heart of the Jungle"

"Trying to wrap my head around creationist astronomy is like trying to ride a unicycle around a Moebius strip: it’s off-balance, physically impossible, full of one-sided arguments, and in the end you don’t go anywhere." Phil Plait

And this Romulus-getting-eroded-away... does it occur during the lifetime
of J. T. Kirk, or earlier, or later?

Van Rijn,

Why do you infer that Romulus must have been recently terraformed?

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

__________________
http://www.FreeMars.org/jeff/

"I find astronomy very interesting, but I wouldn't if I thought we
were just going to sit here and look." -- "Van Rijn"

"The other planets? Well, they just happen to be there, but the
point of rockets is to explore them!" -- Kai Yeves

Romulus is destroyed around what would be the time after the Nemesis Film. Spock is still alive, but old.

From there, the Romulan ship is pulled through the wormhole to encounter Kirk's father's ship, literally at the time of Kirk's Birth. and changes the timeline

About 25 years later, Old Spock appears through the wormhole as New Spock, and New Kirk are at the Academy.

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I'm not evil.
An evil person would do the things I think up.

Oh, so the film provides an explanation for the differences between it and
the canonical Star Trek? Time travel again! Sheesh! I like time-travel
stories, but they never belonged in Star Trek. ... On the other hand, I
won some Star Trek novels in a raffle once, and one of them was a pretty
interesting time-travel puzzle.

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

__________________
http://www.FreeMars.org/jeff/

"I find astronomy very interesting, but I wouldn't if I thought we
were just going to sit here and look." -- "Van Rijn"

"The other planets? Well, they just happen to be there, but the
point of rockets is to explore them!" -- Kai Yeves

If it was close enough to a massive star to be vaporized in a supernova, as indicated in the movie, it wouldn't have had billions of years to develop a native ecology. It probably couldn't be terraformed at all, if such a star were that close.

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The Leif Ericson Cruiser

As I said, I knew the science would be stupid. I expected it. The problem for me was that there was just too much stupid science, stupid plot, and stupid stuff (like a brewery in a starship).

I'm not either.

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The Leif Ericson Cruiser

I haven't carefully looked at the ages of stars when they go supernova.
Couldn't this planetary system have been, say, a billion years old, giving
Romulus enough time to develop photosynthesizing plant life which filled
the atmosphere with free oxygen?

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

__________________
http://www.FreeMars.org/jeff/

"I find astronomy very interesting, but I wouldn't if I thought we
were just going to sit here and look." -- "Van Rijn"

"The other planets? Well, they just happen to be there, but the
point of rockets is to explore them!" -- Kai Yeves

There are essentially two ways to get a supernova - a massive star at the end of it's life on the main sequence, or accretion/merging with a white dwarf (Type 1a supernova). Visually, this wasn't accretion or merging with a white dwarf, but a large star exploding. A massive star has a lifespan of a few million years.

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I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

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The Leif Ericson Cruiser

Just saw this over at Memory Alpha:

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Supernova
Uh-huh. Of course, all supernova convert mass to energy, but this was supposed to be something more, obviously. They should have called it a hypernova. It still would be hard to affect the entire galaxy. And there aren't many hypernova candidates.

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The Leif Ericson Cruiser

It was also indicated that Romulus had little or no warning when the supernova occurred, and given their FTL capability, that also puts a severe limit on how far away the supernova could have been from Romulus.

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Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

Um... you all do realize this is just a fun late spring romp at the theater?

I know some others here are old enough to remember watching the original series on NBC. Hope so, anyway. What amazes me is how ANGRY people seem to get discussing a television program. Not even NOVA. Or Meet the Press. Man, lighten up.

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If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers.