A news story is making the rounds that the star T Pyxidis may well one day go supernova. Cool, the story agrees, but its distance is much, much closer to us than we realized, and frankly, things would get really bad, really fast here on Earth.

Okay, so the star is 3,300 light years away, right? Right, but if it blew up 3,299.9 years ago, the first you’d know about it was when it killed you in a few days.

Not quite, as you expect.

The Bad Astronomer knows a bit about this, and explains that it would need to be closer than 25 light years away to be even a remote threat to us. A Type 1a supernova might potentially be an impressive visual display 3,300 light years away, but the explosion itself won’t even put a ripple on a dandelion here on Earth.

So cheer up. The Mandarin is working on something much scarier only a few miles from your house.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.