Am I wrong?

[NomoneyNohoney]

This was included in strange comments on a YouTube post:
"... Just as the mainstream everything is pseudo science, our sun every 12 thousand years produces a mini or micro nova. The side of the planet facing the sun will get destroyed but not the whole planet... "

Am I misunderstanding? Surely there is a simple fact called earth's rotation that means it's all or nothing? Or would this only be true, if a nova flared and died in less than 12 hours?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixYqFQRjAs0 Comment by m k 2 days ago.

[Itsallaguess]

This was included in strange comments on a YouTube post:

"... Just as the mainstream everything is pseudo science, our sun every 12 thousand years produces a mini or micro nova. The side of the planet facing the sun will get destroyed but not the whole planet... "

Am I misunderstanding? Surely there is a simple fact called earth's rotation that means it's all or nothing? Or would this only be true, if a nova flared and died in less than 12 hours?

Wouldn't that be an extinction event on the scale of the dinosaurs, once every 12000 years?

Why haven't we found any evidence of them whilst we've been able to dig down to 65 million years ago and regularly examine the dino-death layers?

You'd think there would be a few of those 'nova-death' layers buried around, wouldn't you?

I suspect he's getting confused with Gamma-Ray-Bursts, which could potentially deliver that kind of 'death-ray', but where the low risk is associated with other, far away stars at the end of their lives, rather than our own -

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/gamma-ray-bursts-explained-this-terrifying-phenomenon-could-wipe-out-all-life-on-earth_uk_579f6fb8e4b0f42daa4ad2b5

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[mc2fool]

Reminds me of a good short story by Larry Niven. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inconstant_Moon

[SalvorHardin]

This was included in strange comments on a YouTube post:
"... Just as the mainstream everything is pseudo science, our sun every 12 thousand years produces a mini or micro nova. The side of the planet facing the sun will get destroyed but not the whole planet... "

Am I misunderstanding? Surely there is a simple fact called earth's rotation that means it's all or nothing? Or would this only be true, if a nova flared and died in less than 12 hours?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixYqFQRjAs0 Comment by m k 2 days ago.

The YouTube poster's comment is nonsense. Our sun cannot go nova.

A star can only go nova if there is a second star in the same system. This star would have to be a white dwarf. There isn't a white dwarf in our star system. Also there would be geological evidence of multiple extinction level events approximately every 12,000 years(which there isn't).

Nova are caused by a white dwarf drawing gas and plasma away from the larger sun in the same star system. When a sufficient amount has accumulated on the white dwarf this causes an explosion (of this matter), which in turn produces a huge amount of light which is the visible "nova". The white dwarf remains and will create more novae in the future.

The YouTube commentor may have confused novae with solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CME), which do happen from time to time. These aren't large enough to wipe out life on a global scale. An example of a large CME which hit the Earth was the Carrington Event in 1859. Its main effects were to generate a version of the Northern lights in many parts of the world and to disrupt telegraph systems.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrington_Event

A Carrington Event today would kill many people because it affects electrical system. Society in 1859 wasn't as dependent upon electricity as it is today. It would knock out power systems around the world along with much of the global satellite network. This takes down the electrical grid, a lot of electricity generation, the internet, electronic payment systems, telecommunications, etc. It would take months to get the power grids fully back online and many people would die in the meantime.