Gamma Ray Burst (GRB)

Ever heard of a Gamma Ray Burst? Maybe something linked to the Incredible Hulk? Remember how Bruce Banner aka the Hulk was exposed to a massive dose of Gamma rays in a lab experiment gone wrong. It ultimately turned him into the raging Hulk. According to superhero lore, the Hulk is the most powerful of them all with near limitless muscle.

Unlike the Hulk though, a GRB is real. It's not science fiction or the stuff of imagination. It's a bona fide phenomenon. GRB's are some of the most powerful forces in the known universe. A single gamma ray burst energy output exceeds the total cumulative power of our sun over it's 10 billion year life cycle!

GRB's are usually created by exploding super stars. A super star can be 100 times larger then our own sun. These hulking masses burn bright, live fast and usually don't last very long. Our sun in comparison is not big enough to explode into a supernova but it's life span is much longer.

As the mega star begin it's death march and enters the final stages before ripping itself apart, it's rapidly rotating mass collapses to create a black hole. That ensuing collapse is referred to as a supernova. During that collapse, a GRB can occur. It usually only lasts a couple of seconds but the power generated during those few seconds is immeasurable.

So where are these GRB's? Any lurking in our corner of the universe? It's possible but they usually occur billions of light years away; in the far edges of the universe.

But I was watching a program on History Channel recently and a team of JPL scientist talked about a Wolf Rayet star (class of super stars usually about 20 times the mass of our sun) only about 8,000 light years away that appears highly unstable and poised to ignite. The explosion in itself poses no danger to our planet but it's axis is pointing directly towards Earth which means that we are staring down the barrel of a gun.

If the resulting supernova were to produce a GRB, Earth could be directly in the line of fire. A direct hit from a GRB even from 8,000 light years away, has the capacity to obliterate our atmosphere which will cause mass extinction. Imagine the earth without it's protective ozone. Solar winds from our sun will roast the blue planet alive.

Ever wondered about our Sun?

Astronomy is a fascinating subject. The study of our breathtaking universe continues to be an important step in my spiritual evolution. Every time I read about new discoveries or view pictures from outer space, I can't help but wonder. Could one entity really be the architect, the invisible hand, the engineering virtuoso behind our vast universe?

Let's start with the sun, at the center of our cozy little solar system neatly tucked away in an obscure corner of the enormous Milky Way galaxy, 100,000 light years across, containing between 200 billion to 400 billion stars. Our sun sits about 93 million miles away from earth. Any closer or farther would mean the end of life. It is maintained at precisely that distance.

The sun is classified as a GV Star and small by cosmic standards. There are much much larger stars out there and yet the total volume of the sun is 1.4 x 10²⁷ cubic meters, enough to fit 1.3 million earths with room to spare. From a human perspective, this is almost unfathomable. Every second, the sun fuses approximately 600 million tons of hydrogen into helium converting about 4 million tons of matter into energy. Each second mind you and this is just a small yellow dwarf star.

Solar energy is created deep within the core of the Sun. It is here that the temperature (15,000,000° C; 27,000,000° F) and pressure (340 billion times Earth's air pressure at sea level) is so intense that nuclear reactions take place.

Sunlight is the primary source of Earth's energy. The source of our power. Sunlight traveling at 186,000 miles per second takes approximately 8 minutes to reach the earth. So powerful is the sun that even from that distance, it can vaporize water. A powerful solar storm can unleash a tidal wave of destruction pulverizing everything from orbiting communication satellites to power grids on the ground. A single powerful storm has the capacity to take civilization as we know it back to the stone ages.

The sun is about 4.5 billion years old. It is slowly but surely dying. As it fades away, it will get progressively hotter and more violent. In about 5 billion years, the sun will enter the red giant phase, its outer layers expanding as the hydrogen fuel in the core is consumed. By this time, life on earth would have been long extinct or perhaps humans would have found a way to exist on other planets. The sun's radius will swell. The inner planets, Mercury, Venus and Earth will be obliterated. As the sun cools down and shrinks into a white dwarf star, the outer planets of our solar system will become cold, dark, hulking masses. Ghostly silhouettes, spinning aimlessly in a once effervescent solar system.

Because our sun is not big enough to explode into a supernova, it is destined to become a white dwarf star. The sun will dim, burning at a tiny fraction of it's former self; no longer able to sustain life. It is said that the sun could remain in the white dwarf stage for a trillion years before the candle is finally extinguished.