Thinking back to the Gamma blast that nearly destroyed Earth

K

K.I.L.E.R

Retarded moron
Veteran
Remember last year when a quasar went haywire, detonated and sent a burst of gamma rays towards Earth?

If Earth was any closer our atmosphere would have been destroyed and we'd all be dead.
Scientists didn't see this coming for a long time as far as I know.
Why couldn't something else like this occur again?
If it does then we could all be killed.

What could we do to cheat death in such situations?
 
There is no any quasar near earth bursting gamma rays.
AFAIK the said gamma ray burst (from a supernova, not a quasar) is very far from earth (something like 30k light years away) and has no chance to hurt anything on earth.
It's estimated that if something like that happens near earth (like 20 light years or closer) many creatures on earth could die. However, there no such possibility discovered (yet) around the earth.
 
K.I.L.E.R said:
Remember last year when a quasar went haywire, detonated and sent a burst of gamma rays towards Earth?
Click to expand...

No, which one are you referring to?

If Earth was any closer our atmosphere would have been destroyed and we'd all be dead.
Click to expand...
Any closer than what? There hasn't been a supernova observed in our galaxy for several hundred years (yet alone a gamma-ray burst). There have been supernovae in our galaxy recorded in history (SN1006, Tycho [in 1572], Kepler [in 1604] amonst others) and we seem to still be here... so draw your own conclusions from that.

What could we do to cheat death in such situations?
Click to expand...
Nothing. Your arse is grass. Actually I read that the gamma-ray were going to come and seek you in person, and ignore all of the rest of us. So that's OK.
 
Well, not that i'm taking this thread seriously, but if something liek this happened, couldn't we go to the side of the planet that isn't facing the supernova, so we're not directly hit by the wave? That should save us for a while... I guess, if our atmosphere was depleted from the gamma ray burst, that would still mean we're royally f**ked...
 
Yea! Run baby run, to the other side of the planet before the Gamma Rays hit you.
What if the Gamma Rays did hit Earth and we're all dead but we just think we're still alive because we didn't know we died because it hit so fast.
 
rabidrabbit said:
Yea! Run baby run, to the other side of the planet before the Gamma Rays hit you.
What if the Gamma Rays did hit Earth and we're all dead but we just think we're still alive because we didn't know we died because it hit so fast.
Click to expand...

I think it is time for you to stop drinking coffee.
 
london-boy said:
Well, not that i'm taking this thread seriously, but if something liek this happened, couldn't we go to the side of the planet that isn't facing the supernova, so we're not directly hit by the wave? That should save us for a while... I guess, if our atmosphere was depleted from the gamma ray burst, that would still mean we're royally f**ked...
Click to expand...

Problem is (even if it would make a difference) we'd need to know that the event was going to happen ahead of time. Gamma-rays travel at the speed of light, so they'd arrive at the same time as all the other information telling us that the explosion had happened. That doesn't leave much time to pack a weekend bag and get your arse down to Heathrow and on to the next plane to Accopulco.
 
nutball said:
Problem is (even if it would make a difference) we'd need to know that the event was going to happen ahead of time. Gamma-rays travel at the speed of light, so they'd arrive at the same time as all the other information telling us that the explosion had happened. That doesn't leave much time to pack a weekend bag and get your arse down to Heathrow and on to the next plane to Accopulco.
Click to expand...

... so i wouldn't get a free flight and accommodation to the Hawaii? That's not nice.

Seriously (using the term loosely here), wouldn't we see the signs that the supernova was about to explode, before the gamma ray comes? It's not exactly a sudden event... Ok grasping at straws here, i just really want a freebie.
 
london-boy said:
Seriously (using the term loosely here), wouldn't we see the signs that the supernova was about to explode, before the gamma ray comes? It's not exactly a sudden event... Ok grasping at straws here, i just really want a freebie.
Click to expand...
Not with any certainty -- it's like predicting earthquakes. We can look at a star and say "that's likely to go supernova in the next million years" but that's about the limit of precision.

There's recent evidence I think that one of the classes of gamma-ray burst are associated with a class of supernova, but the GRB is actually a pre-cursor event to the traditional optical brightening we associate with supernovae. But that works the wrong way round for what you want -- we get toasted first then two weeks later we get a pretty light-show.
 
nutball said:
Not with any certainty -- it's like predicting earthquakes. We can look at a star and say "that's likely to go supernova in the next million years" but that's about the limit of precision.

There's recent evidence I think that one of the classes of gamma-ray burst are associated with a class of supernova, but the GRB is actually a pre-cursor event to the traditional optical brightening we associate with supernovae. But that works the wrong way round for what you want -- we get toasted first then two weeks later we get a pretty light-show.
Click to expand...

Oh right, that's what i was wondering... I guess if the GRB is the first sudden event, we'd be fried. Or we could all turn into huge green mountains of muscle, you never know!
 
london-boy said:
Or we could all turn into huge green mountains of muscle, you never know!
Click to expand...

Will that solve more problems then it caused? (assuming everyone becomes that way) :)
 
pcchen said:
Will that solve more problems then it caused? (assuming everyone becomes that way) :)
Click to expand...

Depending on which side of the planet the GRB hits!! If it hits Europe, the "new look" will probably be embraced in the rest of the planet because it would become "fashionable"... U know, us crazy italians..
 
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