Novae

These assumptions would rule out some of the prime suspects in the mystery: comets, brightening stars known as novae, and exploding stars known as supernovae. ❋ Unknown (2010)

In the conventional view of sf/fantasy, a distinction is usually made between the two forms as fictions of the possible and the impossible respectively, but this is a distinction which glosses over the temporal (technological and historical) impossibilities of "novae" (Darko Suvin's term for the hypothetical novelties of sf) and "errata" (my own term for the counterfactual alterations of alt-history). ❋ Hal Duncan (2008)

Astronomers commonly observe intense flashes of light from a variety of stellar explosions and outbursts, such as novae and supernovae. ❋ Unknown (2009)

The occurrence of phenomena such as novae within the astronomer's universe, such as that Crab Nebula which does much, periodically, to combat the radiation of the Sun in shaping some of the leading effects experienced in our own Earth, presents us with evidence of the "mortality" of both Solar systems and the galaxies which they inhabit. ❋ Unknown (2009)

All the quirks of strange fiction, to put it in a pertinent perspective, all the counterfactual errata, the hypothetical novae, the metaphysical chimerae — Nazi presidents and robot stormtroopers and butterfly-winged faeries — these are not pure invention. ❋ Hal Duncan (2009)

Recurrent novae are close binary stars where matter is accreting from the secondary star onto the surface of a white dwarf primary. ❋ Unknown (2010)

All novae are caused by the ignition of the dense outer hydrogen atmosphere surrounding the WD which reaches thermonuclear temperatures and explodes the atmosphere into the surrounding space. ❋ Unknown (2010)

This is the only way to get enough material accumulated onto the white dwarf in such a short time, as compared to classical novae. ❋ Unknown (2010)

Recurrent novae are of particular interest to scientists because they may represent a stage in the evolution of close binary systems on their way to becoming Type IA supernovae. ❋ Unknown (2010)

While concretised metaphors may be written into the strange fiction of novae, errata and chimerae, and this sort of fantastication therefore quite familiar, the pataphor is noticeably distinct in the fact that it concretises the metaphor, in this example, as it occurs, violating convention in the most fundamental way, rendering the whole narrative as unpredictable and metamorphic as a dream. ❋ Hal Duncan (2008)

If the recurring novae are ejecting enough material, then the white dwarf would stay small enough to continue to go through the phase of recurring novae. ❋ Unknown (2010)

Just as it's not that difficult to situate novae, errata and chimerae in textual specifics ( "The door dilated," "President Himmler sat in the Oval Office," "The crescent sun was high, the moon low,") pataphysical quirks are not so hard to pin down, I think, as it may at first seem. ❋ Hal Duncan (2008)

At the end of the eighteenth century, a physician, Martin de Sessé y Lacasta, and José Mariano Mociño collect plants for Mexico's Botanical Garden, recording their findings in Plantae novae Hispaniae. ❋ Unknown (2008)

If we allow these 13 trillion life-giving planets, then we have to take into account the probability of disaster: The odds that life existed on earth for 4 billion years aren't that slim, there were few events that occurred which could have stopped life from existing at all -- like I said, mass disease, mass famine due to some sort of climate shift, meteor strike, and super novae. ❋ Unknown (2010)

I'm not so sorry to say this, but: life adapts, it always adapts -- once it's there, there are few things that are just going to wipe it out of existence mainly meteors or super novae, and they only happen every 1 to 10 billion years or so. ❋ Unknown (2010)