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Gamma Ray Burst
apod.nasa.gov — If you were lucky enough to look in the direction of Bootes on March 19th, you would have been able to see a visible gamma ray burst. Rare and exciting.
gkwillie- 594 diggs
- digg it
- macosta5811, on 03/28/2008, -1/+6Without words...
- surian, on 03/28/2008, -1/+9... should have sent ... a poet
- Cronikeys, on 03/28/2008, -0/+8Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup... they slither while they pass, they slip away across the universe.
- 350Zed, on 03/28/2008, -0/+3R.I.P. Carl. You are missed.
- HamsterOfDeath, on 03/28/2008, -0/+7Very cool! This site has more info as well as an animation showing the burst light up and fade:
http://www.universetoday.com/2008/03/21/see-that-r ... - Hearticer, on 03/28/2008, -15/+0Finally caught the birth of a galaxy, which is what a GRB is.
- LiquidIse, on 03/28/2008, -1/+14Excuse me while i slam my head into my palm
- CATSCEO, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1Do you even know what a galaxy is? Are you 10 years old or a drop out?
- twertyto, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1I'll do the same but also refer Hearticer to the proper explanation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_ray_burst
- Intrexed, on 03/28/2008, -6/+6that's old news. oh ho ho ho. ..yeah i'm a nerd.
- gluecode, on 03/28/2008, -3/+2Yes, 7.5 billion light years old.
- 350Zed, on 03/28/2008, -2/+3"Light years" measure distance, not time.
- surKaz, on 03/28/2008, -1/+2measure time it takes for light to travel blah blah blah.. You all already know.. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_Year)
But that still means it already started by the time we see it here....
- surKaz, on 03/28/2008, -1/+2measure time it takes for light to travel blah blah blah.. You all already know.. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_Year)
- 350Zed, on 03/28/2008, -2/+3"Light years" measure distance, not time.
- gluecode, on 03/28/2008, -3/+2Yes, 7.5 billion light years old.
- scififan9009, on 03/28/2008, -1/+2John BigBootes?
- captaindoobers, on 03/28/2008, -0/+3nope. John Smallberries
- madpuppy, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1is that you? perfect tom
- supaklaw, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1History... is-a made at night! Character... is what you are in the dark! We must WORK, while the clock, she's-a ticking!
- kingmanic, on 03/28/2008, -0/+9Hulk Smash?
- sloppymoney87, on 03/28/2008, -0/+2Very Cool.
Larger Version Here: http://tinyurl.com/38gxzz- Cronikeys, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1Bigger doesn't mean better.
- 0crabby0, on 03/28/2008, -1/+3My eyes... MY GAMMA RAY BLINDED EYES!!!
- deaftly, on 03/28/2008, -0/+2Should have worn your goggles!
- LivingChaos, on 03/28/2008, -0/+2This burst was so bright that it would be observable if it was placed at any point in the universe.
- Zlorp, on 03/28/2008, -9/+6wow 7.5 billion lightyears away? how could we see something thats 7.5 billion years old when the universe has only been here for 6000 years!
- twertyto, on 03/28/2008, -1/+4That joke is old.
- Zlorp, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1it will be old when people stop really thinking it.
- JulyZerg, on 03/29/2008, -0/+1True...
- Zlorp, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1it will be old when people stop really thinking it.
- andyd273, on 03/28/2008, -2/+2and troll bait... off topic as well.
- Zlorp, on 03/28/2008, -0/+3how do you figure its off topic?
- pinchduck, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1In young earth Soviet Russia....oh, never mind.
- twertyto, on 03/28/2008, -1/+4That joke is old.
- fudged71, on 03/28/2008, -0/+2There were actually five (5) gamma ray bursts that day
- daivos, on 03/28/2008, -0/+3Yea, but it's a dry heat.
- Hockey13, on 03/28/2008, -1/+3This APoD is actually pretty extraordinary.
"Now holding the distinction of the most distant object that could be seen by the unaided eye and the intrinsically brightest object ever detected, the cosmic explosion is estimated to have been over 2.5 million times more luminous than the brightest known supernova." - LordRahl72, on 03/28/2008, -0/+7Too bad it was not closer. It would have been the last thing any of us would ever have seen before our atmosphere would have been blown off and the planet turned into a cinder block in a matter of seconds.
- ordig, on 03/28/2008, -0/+3you mean like this one?
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23311578-2,00 ... - Bactame, on 03/29/2008, -0/+1Of course if it were closer we'd have seen it sooner though the pronoun, we, is only decorative. Since we wouldn't have seen it at all. We simply wouldn't be.
- ordig, on 03/28/2008, -0/+3you mean like this one?
- evildeadguy, on 03/28/2008, -0/+10"If you were lucky enough to look in the direction of Bootes on March 19th, you would have been able to see a visible gamma ray burst. Rare and exciting.
also, you have peeper cancer" - Samyaza, on 03/28/2008, -1/+0"Over halfway across the Universe at a distance of about 7.5 billion light-years."
Wikipedia says the Universe is 93 billion light years across.
Neil Cornish, an astrophysicist at Montana State University says 156 billion light-years across.
Is the article referring to the size of the universe itself or just the -observable- universe?- twertyto, on 03/28/2008, -1/+3Visible universe which is would be a distance of 13.7 billion years approximately.
- staffa, on 03/28/2008, -0/+3The absolute size of the universe is unknown
The visible universe is 83 billion lights in any one direction or about 160 billion light years across.
The reason the size of the visible universe doesn't match up with the age of the universe(which if you think about it, it should) is because the universe is expanding. And on the scales of billions of light years, it has expanded ALOT.
- staffa, on 03/28/2008, -0/+3The absolute size of the universe is unknown
- twertyto, on 03/28/2008, -1/+3Visible universe which is would be a distance of 13.7 billion years approximately.
- icemanex, on 03/28/2008, -0/+0Observable, there is no way of telling.
- badsector, on 03/28/2008, -1/+2Gamma rays are so bad ass that if one pointed in our direction it will destroy our atmosphere into oblivion and even modify our molecule structure in our body..
- twertyto, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1One gamma ray wouldn't have any effect. Gamma rays hit our atmosphere every day producing a relatively harmless shower of subatomic particles over the Earth.
- glue, on 03/28/2008, -0/+2Did this GRB happen 7.5 billion years ago? Cool.
- shifty2, on 03/28/2008, -0/+3There was a really good show on the History channel a few nights ago about the history of humans studying Gamma Ray bursts from collapsing hyper nova.
The best part was how in theory of a gamma ray burst hit the earth that originated from Alpha Centruri, it would blow away our atmosphere and near liquefy the surface of the earth...
The goggles...
ah, ***** it! - twertyto, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1The description is slightly misleading.
If I read things correctly when this story first appear about a week ago the apparent visual magnitude of the GRB was 5.6. While I guess that is technically visible (to the naked eye) that would be EXTREMELY difficult to see and likely only by the well trained eye of the amateur in a very dark location for the few seconds it was visible if you were looking in just the right place. Cool nonetheless. - geneusutwerk, on 03/28/2008, -1/+1http://youtube.com/watch?v=vNtgf5U-9PE
- JewelsNorth, on 04/18/2008, -0/+1Wasn't there some rather intense gamma ray bursts before the Sumatra earthquake and tidal wave?
- andyd273, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1"Hey, lets see whats in here?"
"OW! my sperm!"
"Hehehe, lets try that again."
"Hey, it didn't hurt that time!"
The other first thoughts on this were "If you were lucky enough to see it, it was a true once in a lifetime event, meaning, you are now going to die." - Calcularius, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1If you happened to be looking in the direction of the internet on March 19, you would already know about this.
- Tempest811, on 03/28/2008, -0/+2Just think that there may be some other form of intelligent life out there that also looked to the sky and recorded this burst...possibly millions or billions of years in the future or past depending on their location.
- fibreoptix, on 03/28/2008, -1/+2Wow, good thing it did'nt do it near us. Death from a GRB is painful, all organic material cooks from the inside out. The after math would be weird. All buildings, cars and stuff would be there shiny and new, but no life on the entire planet. That would be freaky.
- Zorkon, on 03/28/2008, -2/+0My eyes! The googles do nothing!
- StevesJobs, on 03/28/2008, -0/+0I wonder if the people on neighboring planets did anything to stop this
- lornefs, on 03/28/2008, -0/+3"If you were lucky enough to look in the direction of Bootes on March 19th, you would have been able to see a visible gamma ray burst."
There's no such thing as a visible gamma ray burst, gamma rays are in the electro-magnetic spectrum way beyond visible light.
They were saying you could see the source of the gamma ray burst.- gkwillie, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1My bad.I intended to say the visible portion of a source that included gamma rays, but that isn't really flashy. (no pun intended)
- michelsonmorley, on 03/29/2008, -0/+1Gamma rays are not in the visible light spectrum, but gamma rays are detected in the visible spectrum through Cerenkov light. Gamma rays traveling through air create a blue/UV shower. But those showers are typically too fast to be seen by the human eye. From what I understand, you could however see the shower created by the gamma ray bursts on that night - an extremely rare occurance!
- ASSASSYN360, on 03/28/2008, -0/+0But, gamma rays destroy living tissue at the genetic level.
- cachemoney, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1This worries me, last thing I need to see is Hulks running around my neighborhood.
- waluum, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1I did the math and if we tried traveling there at 17,580 MPH (the speed of the space shuttle in orbit) it would take us 131.85 TRILLION years to get there!
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
*BRAIN EXPLODES* - frosted, on 03/28/2008, -0/+0looks like a glowing crap stain...
beautiful..
deadly... - Bactame, on 03/29/2008, -0/+1Boy you gotta watch out for the weird things you might find in your Bootes. This one would be a real hot foot.
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