Naked-Eye Gamma-ray Burst Aimed Directly at Earth

Naked-Eye Gamma-ray Burst Aimed Directly at Earth

science.nasa.gov

Sept. 10, 2008: Astronomers announced today that a remarkable gamma-ray burst visible to the human eye earlier this year came from an explosive stellar jet aimed almost directly at Earth.

(visit the link for the full news article)

I couldnt find this anywhere but mods feel free to delete or move if necassary

I would just like to tell everyone that doesnt know, that if that GAMMA- RAY BURST which was pointed at earth had been closer it would of wiped all of mankind out and totally cleansed the surface of earth.on a positive note its good to see that our the SWIFT satellite is doing its job BUT doesnt give us any time to prepare for such devastating event.

science.nasa.gov
(visit the link for the full news article)

Originally posted by altered_states
... if that GAMMA- RAY BURST which was pointed at earth had been closer it would of wiped all of mankind

Very good find, and yes you are right about the gamma ray wipe out. In fact it is widely accepted that it was this kind of event that wiped out the ubiquitous trilobites near the end of the Permian about 250 million years ago.

reply to post by WatchNLearn


Its just the fact that we would of had no prior warning to this that scares me , I know that any second a town or city could be wiped out by a meteor as we only track the big ones BUT this is just a total different kettle of fish the fact that nothing would survive is crazy

Whoa, thats crazy... Gamma Ray bursts? never heard of it.

I wonder what that would feel like . Would I feel anything?

Gamma-ray bursts are short-lived bursts of gamma-ray photons, the most energetic form of light. At least some of them are associated with a special type of supernovae, the explosions marking the deaths of especially massive stars.

Lasting anywhere from a few milliseconds to several minutes, gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) shine hundreds of times brighter than a typical supernova and about a million trillion times as bright as the Sun, making them briefly the brightest source of cosmic gamma-ray photons in the observable Universe. GRBs are detected roughly once per day from wholly random directions of the sky.

imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov...


en.wikipedia.org...

I thought we would all turn into the Hulk if we were hit by gamma rays. Was'nt DR. Banner hit by gamma rays.



p.s. On a serious note, phew, that was close.

reply to post by '___'eed


LOL - what would you feel? Hmmm, imagine sitting inside a microwave oven and being slowly cooked from the inside out...

reply to post by '___'eed


You might not feel it. But the sky would light up with an unearthly green glow, and then the air would turn brown.

But then your eyesight would diminish leaving you blind because the gamma rays killed the cells in your retina.

Your hair and fingernails would stop growing because those cells would be killed too.

Also, don't bother to eat anything because the cells will be killed in your digestive tract, so you're going to starve to death if you live long enough.

reply to post by '___'eed

dmteed read this
A type of co­los­sal cos­mic ex­plo­sion could beam le­thal ra­di­a­tion across a ga­laxy, fry­ing any life forms in its path, a new anal­y­sis has found.


The first is a flash of gam­ma rays, the high­est-en­er­gy form of light. The flash can im­pe­r­il even the most ra­di­a­tion-resistant or­gan­isms known, the bac­te­ri­um Deinococ­cus ra­dio­du­rans, the re­search­ers wrote. This mi­crobe can take 3,000 times the ra­di­a­tion that would kill a hu­man: the as­sault shreds its ge­nome to hun­dreds of bits, but the har­dy bug stitches them back to­geth­er.

Galante and Hor­vath cal­cu­lat­ed that for a plan­et with a thin at­mos­phere, the gam­ma flash could kill 90 per­cent of D. ra­dio­du­rans from dis­tances up to three times our gal­ax­y’s width. A thick at­mos­phere would pro­tect the mi­crobes from this, but not nec­es­sar­i­ly from a sec­ond com­po­nent of the beam, ul­t­ra­vio­let ra­di­a­tion. Ul­t­ra­vio­let is a type of light slight­ly low­er in en­er­gy than gam­ma rays, but le­thal, large­ly be­cause it pen­e­trates DNA very eas­i­ly.

www.world-science.net...



[edit on 9/17/2008 by altered_states]

reply to post by altered_states


one might say that event is a prelude to what's likely to happen in the 2012 finale'.


but, the object in the OP was a staggering 7.5 Billion light-years away...
and i think that distance means that that GRB was about halfway across the observable universe from Earth.
Whereas, the GRB, expected in 2012 will originate a mere 26,000 light-year away in the area of the Galactic Center Black-Hole


thanks for the posting the interesting event .

Originally posted by St Udio
reply to post by altered_states

 

one might say that event is a prelude to what's likely to happen in the 2012 finale'.


but, the object in the OP was a staggering 7.5 Billion light-years away...
and i think that distance means that that GRB was about halfway across the observable universe from Earth.
Whereas, the GRB, expected in 2012 will originate a mere 26,000 light-year away in the area of the Galactic Center Black-Hole


thanks for the posting the interesting event .

Yes a GRB that close would surely end all life as we know it but because earth never really aligns with the centre of the galaxy who really know what will happen

With every second of every day passes we the human race are entering into the unknown

[edit on 9/17/2008 by altered_states]

Great find! However am i missing something or this burst happened those billions of years ago? So even this supposed "2012" burst - already happened, just not yet here.
Another stupid question - how it is possible to know the source and distance to it without triangulation?
Thanks in advance. Be gentle, plz.

Great find! However am i missing something or this burst happened those billions of years ago? So even this supposed "2012" burst - already happened, just not yet here.
Another stupid question - how it is possible to know the source and distance to it without triangulation?
Thanks in advance. Be gentle, plz.

I am not sure if the article was poorly written, or the laws of physics have changed, but....

How the heck is a gamma-ray visible to the naked eye? Gamma rays are on the other side of x-rays. Does anyone see the actual x-rays bouncing around the room when you get an x-ray?

The thread title is misleading as the GRB was NOT aimed directly at the Earth. If the burst last for seconds at most then only the side of the Earth facing the GRB would be affected. Yes the affects would trickle around the world.
Would the radiation spread to the otherside of the Earth?
It's well known that concrete and stone block radiation. So I imagine people that work in mines or missle silos may be spared if they happened to be down there. If we could anticipate them we could prepare dome defenses even if it meant living in a bubble for the rest of our lives.

Wow.. good find, really makes you think how often those things come that close the Swift was launched 20th Nov 2004 (wiki) and presumably there will be more than 50% of the Earth's surface not covered at any one time - as it is only one satellite in orbit looking outwards.

I would like to link a thread of mine from March this year Oh dear... The end of life as we know it due nearby star system? it only had 11 replies but it is a good snap shot of peoples thoughts on this Gamma ray threat... A threat that I think is not really talked about too much. The article linked in my thread discussed a star called 'Wolf-Rayet' which is one of a pair in a binary system 8,000 light years away - on first reading this is not the that this gamma ray burst originated from.

Scary stuff!

I don't think anything could shield you from gamma radiation of that intensity honestly so I think we would all be wiped out quite fast and at the same time.
Maybe you would have a slight chance if you got all the depleted uranium and lead on Earth but would you want to survive then.

Something like this probably will eventually get us if we don't end up doing it to ourselves first of course.

Reminder of how small we are I wish we spent more money on protecting ourselves from things like Asteroids instead of giant wastes of money like the LHC.

reply to post by Teknikal


Well you see I don't know about the LHC being a giant waste of money - especially in this case.. See it may bring about discoveries that allow us to make much better propulsion for out space craft - meaning we could realistically travell in space (not the silly glorified fireworks we been using )

But also here on Earth we could possibly understand materials that would shield us from Gamma radiation - It travels at the SPL so all you gotta do is bunker down and wait - just we have nothing to bunker down under... even lead does not stop Gamma radiation, just impeeds it

reply to post by Now_Then

Most likely scenario is it shows the same as every other accelerator and they pour more cash into a bigger one worst case scenario has plenty of threads already.

As for the shielding we have gamma ray shielding but on this scale it would be like trying to hide from a fire in a paper bag so I'll agree with you there not that we would have had any time to prepare anyway though.