by Ann » Sun Oct 16, 2022 4:51 am
johnnydeep wrote: ↑Sat Oct 15, 2022 8:54 pm
So, these ultra high energy gamma rays passed over the Earth but were presumably blocked by the atmosphere, thereby protecting us hapless humans here on the surface. But these same rays also passed through (or impacted) satellites and the ISS and obviously also the orbiting Fermi telescope that detected tham. Is there a risk of damage to electronics or to human DNA for all the stuff in orbit? Also, how energetic would gamma rays have to be to be able to penetrate the Earth's atmosphere and reach the surface?
Worrying that we are going to be smote by a death star gamma ray burst from outer space is pointless. And unnecessary.
Years ago, I built an extremely simple model of the inner solar system, using little colorful cotton balls, 0.02 meters in diameter, and a round piece of cloth, 2 meters in diameter, and had people help me put them at correct distances from one another - the "Earth" was at 200 meters from the "Sun", while Mars was at 300 meters (I don't remember the distances to Mercury and Venus) - and I was actually flabbergasted at how far away these things were from one another, and how absolutely incredibly tiny the Earth was compared to all the emptiness around it.
And that was only the inner solar system. Our own cosmic back yard.
If you want to get a "feel" for how big the solar system out to Pluto is -
forget the Oort Cloud!!! - then I recommend this site,
A Tediously Accurate Scale Model of the Solar System. Believe me, it
is tedious. The distances are so vast, so you just keep scrolling and scrolling, yet the planets are so small, that you have to scroll slowly not to miss them. Have fun scrolling!!
But here's my point. We all know that the Universe is vast, but many of us still think that death rays and explosions and other things happening "out there" will affect us. The chances of a gamma ray burst actually making a bulls-eye strike on the Earth (or the Sun) are not zilch, but they are very, very, very, very, very (repeat the word until you get tired) close to zilch.
That said, because there is such a huge number of galaxies out there, some galaxies will be unlucky:
NASA wrote:
A powerful jet from a super massive black hole is blasting a nearby galaxy, according to new findings from NASA observatories. This never-before witnessed galactic violence may have a profound effect on planets in the jet's path and trigger a burst of star formation in its destructive wake.
...
The effect of the jet on the companion galaxy is likely to be substantial, because the galaxies in 3C321 are extremely close at a distance of only about 20,000 light years apart. They lie approximately the same distance as Earth is from the center of the Milky Way galaxy.
A bright spot in the Very Large Array and MERLIN images shows where the jet has struck the side of the galaxy, dissipating some of the jet's energy. The collision disrupted and deflected the jet.
Another unique aspect of the discovery in 3C321 is how relatively short-lived this event is on a cosmic time scale. Features seen in the Very Large Array and Chandra images indicate that the jet began impacting the galaxy about one million years ago, a small fraction of the system's lifetime. This means such an alignment is quite rare in the nearby universe, making 3C321 an important opportunity to study such a phenomenon.
You can watch a video of the Death Star Galaxy here:
Click to play embedded YouTube video.
But this won't happen to us. You can rest easy.
Then again, space is an incredibly hostile environment. If we ever send people to Mars, are they going to be affected by all sorts of radiation on their long journey there? Indeed they are. Are they going to arrive on Mars spry and healthy? I very much doubt it.
Ann
[quote=johnnydeep post_id=326537 time=1665867246 user_id=132061]
So, these ultra high energy gamma rays passed over the Earth but were presumably blocked by the atmosphere, thereby protecting us hapless humans here on the surface. But these same rays also passed through (or impacted) satellites and the ISS and obviously also the orbiting Fermi telescope that detected tham. Is there a risk of damage to electronics or to human DNA for all the stuff in orbit? Also, how energetic would gamma rays have to be to be able to penetrate the Earth's atmosphere and reach the surface?
[/quote]
Worrying that we are going to be smote by a death star gamma ray burst from outer space is pointless. And unnecessary.
Years ago, I built an extremely simple model of the inner solar system, using little colorful cotton balls, 0.02 meters in diameter, and a round piece of cloth, 2 meters in diameter, and had people help me put them at correct distances from one another - the "Earth" was at 200 meters from the "Sun", while Mars was at 300 meters (I don't remember the distances to Mercury and Venus) - and I was actually flabbergasted at how far away these things were from one another, and how absolutely incredibly tiny the Earth was compared to all the emptiness around it.
And that was only the inner solar system. Our own cosmic back yard.
If you want to get a "feel" for how big the solar system out to Pluto is - [i]forget the Oort Cloud!!![/i] - then I recommend this site, [url=https://joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.html]A Tediously Accurate Scale Model of the Solar System[/url]. Believe me, it [i]is[/i] tedious. The distances are so vast, so you just keep scrolling and scrolling, yet the planets are so small, that you have to scroll slowly not to miss them. Have fun scrolling!!
But here's my point. We all know that the Universe is vast, but many of us still think that death rays and explosions and other things happening "out there" will affect us. The chances of a gamma ray burst actually making a bulls-eye strike on the Earth (or the Sun) are not zilch, but they are very, very, very, very, very (repeat the word until you get tired) close to zilch.
That said, because there is such a huge number of galaxies out there, some galaxies will be unlucky:
[float=right][img3="A jet from the central black hole of one galaxy of the 3C321 system strikes its companion galaxy. NASA, ESA, D. Evans (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), [X-ray: NASA/CXC/CfA/D.Evans et al.; Optical/UV: NASA/STScI; Radio: NSF/VLA/CfA/D.Evans et al., STFC/JBO/MERLIN]"]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4d/Galaxy3C321-composite.jpg/1280px-Galaxy3C321-composite.jpg[/img3][/float][quote][url=https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/news/07-139.html]NASA[/url] wrote:
A powerful jet from a super massive black hole is blasting a nearby galaxy, according to new findings from NASA observatories. This never-before witnessed galactic violence may have a profound effect on planets in the jet's path and trigger a burst of star formation in its destructive wake.
...
The effect of the jet on the companion galaxy is likely to be substantial, because the galaxies in 3C321 are extremely close at a distance of only about 20,000 light years apart. They lie approximately the same distance as Earth is from the center of the Milky Way galaxy.
A bright spot in the Very Large Array and MERLIN images shows where the jet has struck the side of the galaxy, dissipating some of the jet's energy. The collision disrupted and deflected the jet.
Another unique aspect of the discovery in 3C321 is how relatively short-lived this event is on a cosmic time scale. Features seen in the Very Large Array and Chandra images indicate that the jet began impacting the galaxy about one million years ago, a small fraction of the system's lifetime. This means such an alignment is quite rare in the nearby universe, making 3C321 an important opportunity to study such a phenomenon.[/quote]
You can watch a video of the Death Star Galaxy here:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_F_aU5uT_8[/youtube]
But this won't happen to us. You can rest easy.
Then again, space is an incredibly hostile environment. If we ever send people to Mars, are they going to be affected by all sorts of radiation on their long journey there? Indeed they are. Are they going to arrive on Mars spry and healthy? I very much doubt it.
Ann