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Technobabble silliness
So, I'm watching the TNG episode Evolution.
The episode takes place in a giant/neutron star binary. Classic nova situation, with the neutron star ripping of stellar material until it reaches critical mass, then BOOM! Neat that they used a real item, as opposed to the particle of the week, but there are problems.
1. The claim to know the time of the explosion down to the minute. They're lucky to have it down to the decade.
2. At the end of the episode, they are 40 million km from the binary. That's .26 AU; closer than Mercury is to the Sun! Considering that events of this type are noticeable from Earth, and that the Enterprise's shields fail every time somebody throws a spitwad at them, do they really want to be this close?
3. It is stated that this nova occurs every 196 years. Given Star Trek's future history, they haven't been able to accurately view more than two novas with any great accuracy! Of course we can do the "oh, the Vulcans told us" bit, but it's very clear that the scientist on board is the only guy really pursing this goal.
The episode takes place in a giant/neutron star binary. Classic nova situation, with the neutron star ripping of stellar material until it reaches critical mass, then BOOM! Neat that they used a real item, as opposed to the particle of the week, but there are problems.
1. The claim to know the time of the explosion down to the minute. They're lucky to have it down to the decade.
2. At the end of the episode, they are 40 million km from the binary. That's .26 AU; closer than Mercury is to the Sun! Considering that events of this type are noticeable from Earth, and that the Enterprise's shields fail every time somebody throws a spitwad at them, do they really want to be this close?
3. It is stated that this nova occurs every 196 years. Given Star Trek's future history, they haven't been able to accurately view more than two novas with any great accuracy! Of course we can do the "oh, the Vulcans told us" bit, but it's very clear that the scientist on board is the only guy really pursing this goal.
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Add in the fact that we've observed novas with considerably shorter cycles, and that they may have records from *lots* of planets in the area, they could have a lot of observations.
2. Do you *really* expect these folks to get scale right?