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So could you say that when we see such a gamma ray burst in a distant galaxy (which apparently occurs daily from our point of view), that's witnessing all life
by Aardwolf 3y ago
So could you say that when we see such a gamma ray burst in a distant galaxy (which apparently occurs daily from our point of view), that's witnessing all life in that galaxy being wiped out?
This is pretty horrifying :/
- legutierr 3y agoWould such a burst travel through the body of a planet? If not, perhaps only half of the galaxy’s life would be wiped out.
- hobs 3y agoAbsolutely, as if it was basically not there.
- lawlessone 3y agoSurely the Earth would be too thick for that?
- itishappy 3y agoWe're dealing with incomprehensible amounts of energy. GRBs are powered by the violent deaths of massive stars. Orbiting planets are inconsequential. Have a fun paper! Stars Bisected by Relativistic Blades https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.15347 https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.15347
- quickthrower2 3y agoI thought only neutrinos could do this?
- bonzini 3y agoIt doesn't happen daily, does it? This one was a one in several thousand years event.
- giantrobot 3y agoAs I understand it GRBs are highly directional because the magnetic fields involved in the explosion for us energy into narrow beams. We see the events as GRBs when we cross through the path of the beam. When we see the same type of supernova from the side we still see a bright burst but not nearly as bright as as GRB. If a supernova goes off in your stellar neighborhood you might be screwed if you're in the beam of the GRB or just mildly inconvenienced (minor mass extinction) if you get a side view. So the events causing GRBs are slightly less horrifying than galaxy-sterilizing monsters.