We're all gonna die.. soon I mean.

[Old Yeller]

Originally Posted by photon

Yes, but it may have exploded 8000 years - 1 day ago, and we won't find out until tomorrow when the sleet of hard radiation strips our atmosphere away and turns you into a nice mush before scattering your component atoms to the solar winds.

I for one welcome our new sleet of hard radiation overlords.

Wait that doesn't work very well... maybe I'll just do a boatload of drugs.

[Blaster86]

Originally Posted by Locke

I sure hope so.

When SARS broke out I panicked and ran out and bought a ton of those.

I had no idea what I was going to do with all the damned things.

Was SARS even in Calgary? I don't remember hearing of a single case there =-o

[FanIn80]

Women and children first!

[OutOfTheCube]

So basically, if the one in a hundred billion chance that everything is lined up and all his theories are correct, we're all dead.

I think we'll be okay.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by 4X4

Locke, I finally have a legit reason to kill you. you might wanna tie up any loose ends...

My paper-mask supplier will be most upset.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Blaster86

Was SARS even in Calgary? I don't remember hearing of a single case there =-o

ROFL, no. But I didnt actually buy a ton of paper masks, it was a joke.

[4X4]

Originally Posted by Locke

ROFL, no. But I didnt actually buy a ton of paper masks, it was a joke.

So.. no killing? Nuts.

[evman150]

I actually didn't know the mechanism by which gamma ray bursts happen. We were taught simply that "we don't know yet". I mean, it was less about a decade ago astronomers were debating whether GRBs were galactic or extragalactic phenomena.

The odds of one jet hitting us are extremely low. In a solid angle of 4 pi steradians, or about 43000 square degrees, the jets probably hit maybe 10 of those degrees. That gives a 1 in 4000 chance of the jet even hitting us. This is not even taking into account that the star may not even go GRB.

I'd like to see an analysis of supernova explosions and their coupling to GRBs, that is to say how often they are coupled compared to how often there is just a supernova. Also, an analysis of which supernovae they are coupled to (supernovae type Ia, II etc) would be interesting. I'm guessing that they are coupled to type II primarily, since that is what the blog entry describes. The mechanism seems to be contingent upon an exploding star (type II), although I wouldn't dismiss out of hand the prospect of a type Ia explosion producing a GRB, though it would be via a different mechanism.

Okay, just did a little digging.

What this guy states as fact, is indeed, just the current model that is favoured. And since GRB incidence is about 1 per galaxy per 100,000 years, and supernova incidence is about 1 per galaxy per century, I guess we can say that GRB incidence would be 1 per 100 supernovae. The most massive stars? I would say that would be the case.

So in any epoch what is the chance of getting hit by one of these? We have 1 per 100k years and 1 in 4000 chance of getting hit by it. That means that we expect to be hit by one of these events every 400 million years, perhaps as low as every 50 million years depending on our estimates.

I'm not worried. There are much more immediate astronomical phenomena that threaten us more than GRBs. Chief among these is, of course, run of the mill asteroids. The other is type Ia supernovae.

Of note, from a paper by Lifan Wang and J. Craig Wheeler at the University of Texas:

SN 1998bw and its corresponding relativistically expanding radio source are coincident with the γ-ray burst source GRB 980425. We searched for other possible supernova–γ-ray burst associations among 101 recent Type Ia and 17 Type Ib/c supernovae (SNe) for which the dates of optical maximum are relatively well known. We show that Type Ia SNe can be excluded as the source of γ-ray bursts (GRBs) at a high significance level (greater than 4 σ) and that the current data are consistent with Type Ib/c SNe as GRB producers. If the Type Ib/c event SN 1998bw does not represent a special class of GRBs, but is representative of the general mechanism for GRBs, it would imply GRB energies that are some fraction of an SN energy. This in turn demands strong collimation into perhaps 10^−3 sr to explain GRBs at higher redshifts. Such collimation requires a high rate of occurrence, perhaps consistent with an SN rate. The collimated flow may be generated by core collapse to produce rotating, magnetized neutron stars. Having lost most or all of their hydrogen and helium envelope before explosion, Type Ib/c SNe are particularly amenable to SN-GRB associations. Asymmetries in line profiles and spectropolarimetry of Types II and Ib/c SNe, pulsar runaway velocities, soft γ-ray repeaters, and GRBs may be associated phenomena.

This is describing type Ia/b/c, not type II. Interesting to note the mention of the strong collimation, described as 10^−3 sr, or approximately 4 square degrees, relatively consistent with my estimate. So type Ia SNe do not produce GRBs, I've answered my own question. But they still pose a large threat. SNe type Ia happen when mass is accreted onto a white dwarf star by a larger star. Eventually the star gets massive enough that it cannot support the mass and boom it goes SN. The reason this is especially dangerous is because we cannot see the white dwarfs most of the time. They are invisible threats. Type II are conspicuous because they are really bright stars, plus they are not as powerful as type Ia. A type Ia explosion in our neighbourhood could really wipe us out, close enough and it would be a sterilization event. They are the real threat, not random GRBs that will most likely never happen in the human race's existence.

[Azure]

Lets screw NASA over some more.....than we won't even know when the end comes.

I guess there is SOME comfort in that.

[OBCT]

Originally Posted by evman150

I actually didn't know the mechanism by which gamma ray bursts happen. We were taught simply that "we don't know yet". I mean, it was less about a decade ago astronomers were debating whether GRBs were galactic or extragalactic phenomena.

...
...

Woah, nice post man. I thought I was following along pretty well until the Wang and Wheeler quote... ! yikes. I may have broken my brain.


I guess there would be worse ways to go. At least this GRB thingamajig would put us all out of our misery dang fast. Not that I enjoy the prospect of all natural life as we know it being wiped out forevermore......

[Blaster86]

Originally Posted by evman150

They are the real threat, not random GRBs that will most likely never happen in the human race's existence.

Way to cure one problem with another. Tell me when you have an ant problem do you just hang a waspnest in the front door to forget about the ants?

[evman150]

I'm not "curing" any problem. I'm just saying it's not something we have to worry about, and that there are much greater threats out there if you really want to worry about something.

Of course, there's really no point worrying about any of it since there's nothing we can do about it.

[Blaster86]

Originally Posted by evman150

I'm not "curing" any problem. I'm just saying it's not something we have to worry about, and that there are much greater threats out there if you really want to worry about something.

Of course, there's really no point worrying about any of it since there's nothing we can do about it.

I think you took my post far to seriously =-o

[Locke]

Originally Posted by 4X4

So.. no killing? Nuts.

No worries.....you'll get your chance.

[evman150]

Originally Posted by Blaster86

I think you took my post far to seriously =-o

Sorry.

[Blaster86]

Originally Posted by evman150

Sorry.

You better be, especially for being unable to cure this.

[keratosis]

Originally Posted by photon

Yes, but it may have exploded 8000 years - 1 day ago, and we won't find out until tomorrow when the sleet of hard radiation strips our atmosphere away and turns you into a nice mush before scattering your component atoms to the solar winds.

Sounds like a good reason to start drinking heavily... now!

[Lanny_MacDonald]

The sky is falling!!! The sky is falling!!!

Oh wait, in this particular instance I guess the sky really would be falling.

[troutman]

Bruce Willis will save us.

[Ford Prefect]

Originally Posted by Dion

You must be the fellow some 911 dispatchers once told me about.
They had a regular caller who used to complain that aliens were trying to contact him. When asked what his complaint was he replied that he couldn't understand what they were saying and wanted help "tuning them in." After several such calls, one of the 911 dispatchers told him that if he wrapped himself in tin foil on the next full moon and stood facing due north he would get much better reception from the aliens.

The next full moon showed up and the guy calls in again, madder than a wet hen and complaining that they'd played him for a fool because he still wasn't able to get clear reception from his alien friends.

Where would we be without moon bats?

Edit: I think your cat is fantasizing about doing something in your shoe.