Gamma-Ray Bursts | Death From Space Explained

Gamma Ray Bursts Explained

Gamma Ray Bursts  .What causes Gamma Ray Burst , how Gamma rays Can kill you , Gamma Ray bursts as death from space Lets find out all your queries in this article about gamma ray bursts.

Imagine if you could gather the energy from every star within a hundred million light years.From thousands of galaxies, each with billions of stars. Imagine you could take this kind of power, and use it to fire the biggest super-weapon in the universe. Imagine the damage you can do.It turns out , you don't need to imagine it.These exists and they are called Gamma-ray bursts.

But what are these cosmic snipers?And what happens if one takes a shot at Earth?

To understand gamma ray bursts,we first have to understand gamma rays.

Gamma-Rays:-  

Gamma rays are electromagnetic radiation - waves which carry energy just like visible light.Visible light is a tiny part of the electromagnetic spectrum,it's the part your eyes can see.At lower energies ,there are radio waves ,microwaves and infrared. And at higher energies , ultraviolet , x-rays and gamma-rays. Gamma rays are incredibly powerful .

A single gamma ray photon, is more energetic than a million visible photons combined. Their high energy makes gamma rays a form of ionizing radiation, Meaning they are energetic enough , to break apart  atomic bonds. This makes them dangerous to you and me. ionizing radiations distrups the delicate biochemical machinery that keeps us alive,like a 9mm bullet through a pistol . Fortunately,on Earth, the ozone layer blocks gamma rays . Filtering them out before they can harm us.But if the atmosphere blocks gamma rays from space.

How were gamma ray bursts (or GRBs) from space ever discovered?  

During the cold war,the USA sent up spy satellites , which could detect gamma rays from Soviet nuclear test in space. They didn't see any bombs , but they did observe faint bursts coming from space , lasting only a few seconds . To date , this may be the only major scientific discovery made by spy satellites (that we know about anyway). Astronomers use telescopes see different kinds of light to make their discoveries. And these spy satellites gave them a new pair of eyes.They were mystery for thirty-years but eventually, we discovered the source of a GRB: a galaxy six-billion light years away.

If a GRB can be seen from such a distance , then it must be incredibly energetic. Releasing more energy in a second than the sun will, in its entire ten billion years lifetime. Making GRBs, the brightest events in the universe. So,where did they come from, GRBs , accompany some of the most violent, cataclysmic deaths in the universe, and the birth of black holes(to know more click). 

There are two types of gamma ray bursts :- Short and long , and each has their own source.

Long GRBs last about a minute , and scientists think they are produced supernova when the core of a massive star collapses to become a black hole.

Short GRBs lasts a second, and are produced when two neutron stars in a binary merge.Over millions of years, their orbits decay by emitting gravitational waves.Once they are close enough to touch, they crash and splash into each other, forming a black hole.

Both supernova and neutron star merges the same thing,black holes, surrounded by a magnetized disc of gas left over from their parent stars.In these environment , the rotation winds up the magnetic field , which funnels hot jets of particles,travelling at nearly the speed of light . The gas in this funnels creates two tight jets of high energy gamma rays, like a celestial laser gun.

So unlike other cosmic explosions,which spread out and fade, GRBs stay focused ,and can be sen from much further.Any more detail would require too much mathematics for an article. The universe is full of these cosmic snipers , firing blindly and randomly into the dark, and they're hitting us all the time. On average,we detect one per day. Fortunately , most are harmless . All the bursts we have detected so far , originated outside the Milky way,too far away to hurt us,But a nearby GRB could be Disastrous, if one goes off within a few light years of us, it would totally cook the surface of the Earth.Or at least, the half that's facing it.But even a more distant GRB could still end the life of Earth.And it wouldn't need to score a head-shot to kill us. If originating from  a few thousand light years away,it would be a hundred light years wide by the time it reaches us,washing over the Solar system Like a tidal wave . Again, the ozone layer protects us , but it's better equipped to handle the trickle of ultraviolet form the sun. A gamma ray bursts would overwhelm it, leaving us exposed to deadly solar radiation. Ozone takes years to replenish itself by natural processes,which is more than enough time for the sun to burn the Earth sterile . Or at least , to kill most complex life. In fact,this may have already happened .

 A GRB has been suggested as one possible cause of the Ordovician extinction 450 million years ago,that eradicated almost 85% of all marine species. Although it's pretty much impossible to prove. Gamma ray bursts could even be the one reason we don't see life anywhere else in the universe. They might be wiping clean huge chucks of it, on a regular basis. It's been suggested , that because of GRBs, only 10% of all galaxies might be hospitable to life,similar to us . So, are they going to kill us, Probably not. In a galaxy like ours, there may only be one GRB per millennia. And to harm us, they must be close and directed at us,But since gamma rays travel at the speed of light , we won't know when it's headed our way until it arrives. So , there could already be a GRB on its way to kill us all, and we won't know it until it hits us,and we're dead.

Strange Stars | Strange matter and strange quasar (most dangerous stuff)

Strange Stars (MOST DANGEROUS STUFF)

The most dangerous stuff in the universe Strange Stars Explained:-

To understand how extreme strange matter really is, we first need to get a few basics.

What is neutron star , and how does strange matter break the rules of the universe? To get all of this into one article, we will grossly oversimplify a few things but we'll provide you with further reading ,if you want more details.

A neutron star is  what remains after a very massive star explodes in a supernova. When this happens, the star's core collapses under its own gravity, with such a strong inward force that it squeezes nuclei and particles together violently.Electrons are pushed into protons , so they merge ,and turn into neutrons , all the nothing inside of atoms is suddenly completely filled with particles that really don't want to be close to each other but have no choice .They desperately push back against gravity, against the collapse,

if gravity wins they will become a black hole.

If they loose, they become a neutron star, this makes a neutron star like giant atomic nuclei the size of a city, but holding the mass of our sun ,And here ,things get weird. The environment in the core of neutron stars is so extreme that the rules of nuclear physics change and, this could lead to a strange and extremely dangerous substance. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. We first need to know the rules before we learn how they can be broken.

Protons and neutrons, the particles making up the nuclei of atoms, are made up of smaller particles called quarks .Quarks rally don't want to be alone ,They are what we call confined ,You can try to separate them but the harder you pull ,the harder they try to pull themselves back together .If you use a lot of energy , they just use this energy to create new quarks.Quarks only exists together as the building blocks of other particles, and have never been observed by themselves .They come in many types ,but only two appear to make stable matter the up and down quarks found in protons and neutrons ,All other quarks seem to decay away quickly.But this may be different inside neutron stars .The forces operating in their cores are so extreme, that they are actually similar to the universe shortly after the Big Bang ,Neutron star cores are like fossils which can let us peer back in time to the beginning of everything.So , learning how quarks behave inside a neutron star is a way of understanding the very nature of the universe itself ,One hypothesis , is that inside a neutron star core protons and neutrons de-confine. All the particles cram shoulder-to-shoulder dissolve , and melt into a sort-of bath of quarks.Uncountable numbers of particles one giant thing made purely from quarks #Quark matter.  A star made from this is called a quark star. Though, from the outside , it may not look any different than a regular neutron star.

Now, we can finally talk about the most dangerous substance.If the pressure inside a quark star is great enough it may get stranger.Literally.In the cores of neutron stars , some of the quarks may be converted into strange quarks .Strange quarks have bizarre nuclear properties and they are heavier and , for the lack of a better word, stronger. If they turn up, they could  create strange matter.Strange matter might be the ideal state of matter perfectly dense, perfectly stable, indestructible.

More stable than any other matter in the universe .So stable , that it can exist outside neutron  stars .If this is the case, we have a problem it might be infectious.Every piece of matter it touches might be so impressed by its stability  that it would immediately turn it into strange matter too. Protons and neutrons would dissolve and become part of the quark bath which frees energy and creates more strange matter . The only way to get rid of it would be to throw it into a black hole. But,then again,who cares .All of it is inside neutron stars.Except when neutron star collide with  other neutron stars or with black holes ,they spew out tremendous amounts of their insides some of which could include little droplets of strange matter called strangelets. 

Strangelets are as dense as the core of a neutron star.They could be really small , maybe even subatomic but even the largest strangelets wouldn't be any bigger than a rocket.These strangelets would drift through the galaxy for millions or billions of years until they meet a star or planet by chance.If one were to strike Earth, It would  immediately start converting it into strange matter.The more it coverts , the more it would grow .Ultimately ,all of the atoms making up Earth would be converted.Earth would become a hot clump of strange matter , the size of an asteroid.If a strangelet strikes the sun,it would collapse into a strange star,eating through it like fire through a dry forest.

This would not change the sun's mass much, but it would  become way less bright, so Earth would freeze to death And ,like a tiny virus ,we'd have no way to see a strangelet coming.Worse still, some theories suggest strangelets are more than common outnumbering all stars in the galaxy.These strangelets could have formed very early after Big Bang when it was as hot and dense as a neutron star core everywhere.They might be clumping around the gravity of galaxies , as the universe expanded and evolved. Strangelets could even be so numerous and massive ,that they might actually be the dark matter we suspects holds galaxies together. But then again maybe not.This is speculation ,and the Earth and Sun and planets haven't been consumed in a wildfire of strangelets in the past few billion years ,so the odds seem good that it  won't happen anytime soon.

Understanding these strange objects today may be the key to understanding the birth of our universe and why it grew to look the way it does now .When scientists first started playing with magnets and wires and thinking about electrons ,they had no idea how technology would evolve in the next hundred years .The scientists thinking about the cause of neutron stars and strange matter today may be setting up humans for a future beyond our wildest imaginations.Or , maybe not.Time will tell.

So, while you're waiting to see if the universe gets destroyed you might still want to find out more about it .We've got you.This blog can be your insight into a whole world of science ,black holes and all.

For exiting images about space-time click here