3 ms·

more or less than https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma-ray_burst https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma-ray_burst ?

throwaway613834 9y ago
I think less? When a gamma-ray burst is pointed towards Earth, the focusing of its energy along a relatively narrow beam causes the burst to appear much brighter than it would have been were its energy emitted spherically. When this effect is taken into account, typical gamma-ray bursts are observed to have a true energy release of about 10^44 J, or about 1/2000 of a Solar mass (M) energy equivalent. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma-ray_burst#Energetics_and_beaming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma-ray_burst#Energetics_and...
- rcthompson 9y ago
  I think another sentence in that article might need revision: > No known process in the universe can produce this much energy [1 solar mass equivalent] in such a short time.
danharaj 9y ago
The wikipedia article says that if a GRB were a spherical release of energy, they would be on the same order. However, GRB's are highly anisotropic; most of the energy is expelled in a smaller cone. One of the estimates on the page is that a typical GRB expels 1/2000th a solar mass of energy. So these gravity events are thousands of times more powerful. These scales are incomprehensible, at least to me.
ntumlin 9y ago
From the wiki page: > When this effect is taken into account, typical gamma-ray bursts are observed to have a true energy release of about 1044 J, or about 1/2000 of a Solar mass (M) energy equivalent So more, by about 6000 times. This is consistant with WolframAlpha's output for amount of energy: 5.361e47 J. I tried to convert this to "number of years we could power the Earth", but it just changed it from one mind boggling number into another.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > > When this effect is taken into account, typical gamma-ray bursts are observed to have a true energy release of about 1044 J, Copy-paste error here from losing sup/sub formatting, that's 10^44 J, not 1044 J.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

I think less? When a gamma-ray burst is pointed towards Earth, the focusing of its energy along a relatively narrow beam causes the burst to appear much brighter than it would have been were its energy emitted spherically. When this effect is taken into account, typical gamma-ray bursts are observed to have a true energy release of about 10^44 J, or about 1/2000 of a Solar mass (M) energy equivalent. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma-ray_burst#Energetics_and_beaming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma-ray_burst#Energetics_and...

rcthompson 9y ago
I think another sentence in that article might need revision: > No known process in the universe can produce this much energy [1 solar mass equivalent] in such a short time.

danharaj 9y ago

The wikipedia article says that if a GRB were a spherical release of energy, they would be on the same order. However, GRB's are highly anisotropic; most of the energy is expelled in a smaller cone. One of the estimates on the page is that a typical GRB expels 1/2000th a solar mass of energy. So these gravity events are thousands of times more powerful. These scales are incomprehensible, at least to me.

ntumlin 9y ago

From the wiki page: > When this effect is taken into account, typical gamma-ray bursts are observed to have a true energy release of about 1044 J, or about 1/2000 of a Solar mass (M) energy equivalent So more, by about 6000 times. This is consistant with WolframAlpha's output for amount of energy: 5.361e47 J. I tried to convert this to "number of years we could power the Earth", but it just changed it from one mind boggling number into another.

dragonwriter 9y ago
> > When this effect is taken into account, typical gamma-ray bursts are observed to have a true energy release of about 1044 J, Copy-paste error here from losing sup/sub formatting, that's 10^44 J, not 1044 J.

deleted 9y ago

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