Deeper Look – Episode 6

Let’s get a little introduction to Gamma Ray Bursts. Many good links with pertinent information can be found below the video:

If you haven’t considered how GRB’s fit into the Humans and EM section of the website, it is a worthy exercise. Our biggest challenge may reside in finding good ways to measure, gather, and analyze long term data. For now it is likely just another thing to watch if you are tracking your body’s reaction to space-weather.

What did I mean about the forewarning? There is some amount of the distant GRB’s that would eventually add up to a significant event, especially given how long the effects last. IF we start to see 2, 3, 5 a day, or 10, we may be able to track a disaster as it unfolds. That situation, like a GRB occurring in our galaxy during our lifetimes, is very unlikely to happen.

Links:

Paper on GRB Extinctions: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1409.2506v2.pdf
All Animation Came from NASA: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov
Interesting Article on GRBs: http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/starsgalaxies/gammaray_extinction.html
Sonoma GRB Detector: http://grb.sonoma.edu
GRB Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma-ray_burst#Rate_of_occurrence_and_potential_effects_on_life_on_Earth