3208: SNEWS

SNEWS

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Title text: People say setting of fireworks indoors is dangerous, but I looked at their energy release and it's like 10^-40 foe; totally negligible.

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Explanation

Ponytail is showing Hairy her bedroom. Hairy asks about the large device on the ceiling, and Ponytail explains that it is part of the SNEWS (SuperNova Early Warning System). This detects neutrinos (massless particles that travel at the speed of light, rarely interacting with matters) to give forenotice of type II supernovae, as neutrinos are produced in large quantities during the collapse of the star core, hours before the main photon production. She explains this gives astronomers warning, allowing them to observe the event with telescopes and other instruments. Hairy asks if this is a detector or some kind of telescope aiding detection for the SNEWS, but Ponytail explains that it is in fact a fireworks launcher, to wake her up so she can witness the supernova herself. Hairy, not wanting to be woken up by fireworks, leaves to sleep at his own house.

The title text is a play on the tremendous amount of energy released by a supernova. The foe is an esoteric unit equal to 10^44 Joule, on the order of the amount of energy released by a supernova. In comparison, human-scale amounts of energy—even relatively significant ones such as firework detonations—are negligible.

Transcript

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Discussion

The title text SNEWS is a reference to SuperNova_Early_Warning_System. 2a09:bac2:3656:ebe::178:123 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~) 21:58, 16 February 2026 (UTC)

No, you're wrong. It stands for Southeast, North East West South, since those are the directions where it can detect them. - 45.178.1.151 01:41, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

F1RST! also i posted this when there was no explanation. please fix this 2605:59c8:22e3:3e14:95a1:c5da:4c49:c384 (talk) 22:55, 16 February 2026 (UTC) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Is this my mediocre non-native English, or should the title text read "setting off fireworks indoors"? (Trivia?) --2001:A62:5F7:FB01:538E:3F07:C9F0:F0C0 23:06, 16 February 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, 'setting of fireworks indoors, ...' would mean setting them up (i.e., placing them) and not 'setting off', lighting or detonating the fireworks. Sameldacamel34 (talk) 23:22, 16 February 2026 (UTC)

You can talk of setting explosives (the setting of them, as passively ready, to make them ready for later "setting them off"), so I expect the "setting of fireworks" is pretty much the same thing, much as with the setting of an alarm clock.

Though also sounds like a possible americanism, like "lit it on fire" (c.f. my own prefered "set light to it"), if only because the former seem tautilogical; and/or strangely long-winded, such as with "to burglarize" vs. just "to burgle" (both being what a burglar does upon his burglary). But it's not one of those many funny transatlantic dialect things I've noticed previously, so I could be overexplaining what actually is merely a typo. 82.132.239.3 01:33, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

It snew Yaokuan ITB (talk) 23:28, 16 February 2026 (UTC)

Exactly my thoughts, Yaokuan 216.25.182.141 23:58, 16 February 2026 (UTC)

Gesundheit! Logalex8369 (talk) 01:35, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

Sorry, it somehow escaped me when editing the explanation that neutrinos have mass!! (even though we've known about this for decades). Does this mean that if the supernova is far away enough, the photons will arrive before the neutrinos? Or is that threshold too far to matter? Sameldacamel34 (talk) 01:21, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

my first edit in almost 5 months i think lol P?sych??otic?pot??at???o (talk) 01:45, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

One of the firework launchers on the device is aimed directly at the bed. Xkdvd (talk) 03:06, 17 February 2026 (UTC)
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