Originally posted by woadman Are there any Gamma Ray Bursts coming our way ? How much warning will we have, and would the government tell us or leave us in the dark?
Are there any Gamma Ray Bursts coming our way ?
It is impossible to tell if any are coming our way because the exact moment any one will occur is unpredictable and, even if the one is heading our way, it would be heading our way at the speed of light making it impossible to detect until it has already reached us.
How much warning will we have
None
and would the government tell us or leave us in the dark?
No, because the government will be just as in the dark as the rest of us.
However, there is very little to worry about here because, in most cases, there is no danger to us from Gamma Ray Bursts because they would just be too far away from us to pose a threat. It is extremely unlikely that there will be any close enough to us to pose a threat within our lifetime because it would have to be very close indeed ( within just a few light years; NOT merely on "our side of the galaxy" as a horizon program falsely claimed ) to have a disastrous effect on our biosphere. You are more likely to be killed by an asteroid impact ( I think ) or run over by a bus with an idiot bus driver ( definitely ).
Originally posted by woadman Are there any Gamma Ray Bursts coming our way ? How much warning will we have, and would the government tell us or leave us in the dark?
You would have no warning. Gamma Rays travel at the speed of light. There would have to be some process that emits other radiation prior to emitting Gamma Rays for you to have a warning.
Are there any coming our way? Yes, of course. They happen quite regularly.
Would 'the government' tell us? Well there isn't only one government you know. But more importantly, the first people to know about such things are the scientists, and they typically do not leave it up to 'the government' to do the information dissemination. 'The government' would be the last to know.
From memory, minimum safe distance to a supernova is 300 light years for a type Ia and 80 light years for core collapse supernovae. There are no supernova candidates within that range. So we have good reason to believe it won't happen.
Originally posted by humy You are more likely to be killed by an asteroid impact ( I think ) or run over by a bus with an idiot bus driver ( definitely ).
And even more likely to be run over by a bus with a perfectly adequate bus driver, because you were being an idiot pedestrian.
Originally posted by Shallow Blue And even more likely to be run over by a bus with a perfectly adequate bus driver, because you were being an idiot pedestrian.
Originally posted by woadman Are there any Gamma Ray Bursts coming our way ? How much warning will we have, and would the government tell us or leave us in the dark?
some argue that they seem to be mostly happening in low metalicity (that's not a word, i know) galaxies. so we have an even lower chance to fry.
most likely we will end up in a nuclear war if we can't manage to get our interstellar strolling on.
Gamma Ray Bursts
13 Dec '14 04:07
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