Re: Shades of Egan's Diaspora

From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Thu May 09 2002 - 10:33:52 MDT


On Thu, 9 May 2002, Amara Graps wrote:

> This link might provide useful numbers for some parts of this
> discussion.
>
> http://a188-l009.rit.edu/richmond/answers/snrisks.txt

And worth mentioning, though it has been mentioned before....

 The threat to life from Eta Carinae and gamma ray bursts
 Arnon Dar, A. DeRujula
 http://arXiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0110162

I think this is the fairly definitive paper on the hazards.

Too bad we don't have an agent to scan the archives every
day and notify us when this paper is cited.

I'd agree with Eugene that we need to look for traces of
GRB, on the moon if necessary, before we accept this as
phenomena as "causal" with respect to the evolution of
life or intelligence. However, if it does turn out to
be a significant factor, then comments about it being
included in "Rare Earth" body of evidence and (IMO)
the Drake Equation are quite important.

Robert



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