Candlepower

[james_davis_nicoll]

Yesterday, astronomers spotted a gamma ray burster that was bright enough to be seen with the naked eye. It was over seven billion light-years away.


Nicked from theweaselking

Comments

[phanatic.livejournal.com]

So it was redshifted enough to bring gammas down into the visible range?

[trogon.livejournal.com]

Nope. GRBs emit a lot of light at wavelengths other than gamma rays. The counterparts at other wavelengths actually last a lot longer than the very brief burst of gamma rays, and are how we know most of what we know about GRBs.

[thesaucernews.livejournal.com]

"Oh, hey, look at that."

"What?"

"Out the window. That, up there."

"That's an airplane."

"No, no, there! see? Look. Right there!"

"Get back... you're standing over my lunch!"

"I swear that looks like a gamma ray burst. A pulse of energy so mind-shatteringly vast in scope, so hideously, monstrously gargantuan in power, it could boil the atmospheres of a million planets, snuff out suns like they were matches in a hurricane! Tell me you saw that!"

"If you get dandruff in my soup, so help me..."

[whumpdotcom.livejournal.com]

Maybe the residual gamma ray flux explains the current round of drama queenage on LJ.

[phanatic.livejournal.com]

Have scientists yet identified the emo vector bosun?

[pauldrye.livejournal.com]

They have, but their parents just *didn't understand* the equations.

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

Beautiful.

[boywhocantsayno.livejournal.com]

Indeed. I'd post the whole exchange on metaquotes, but I'm not a member of that community.

joules not ergs!

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

1e48 joules. Um. Total solar conversion would be 2e30 kg * 1e17 J/kg = 1e47 J. So, total conversion of a *big* star.

I think I remember they used to say "GRBs are huge amounts of energy, assuming it's a sphere. Maybe it's beams pointed at us, that wouldn't be so bad." This article seemed to be assuming beams, though.