Explosions In Space May Have Initiated Ancient Extinction On Earth

Science Daily ^ | 4/12/05 | NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

[PatrickHenry]

Thanks for the ping. Good article. I fear the thread's gone downhill already, but I'll crank up the ping machine.

[PatrickHenry]

Science Ping!

An elite subset of the Evolution list.

See list's description in my freeper homepage. Then FReepmail to be added/dropped.

[KevinDavis]

[hosepipe]

[ Explosions In Space May Have Initiated Ancient Extinction On Earth ]

And since we're IF'n....
Maybe they DIDN"T...

[freedumb2003]

Literally:

[furball4paws]

"...and they berate us Christians for not having direct evidence. I suppose this will be adopted as scientific fact shortly then."


Sooooo. Mein lieber Herr....
Ver did you get zees hatred for Science, huh.
Never fear, ve haf our ways to make you talk...

O-\
O-/

[AntiGuv]

A strange article IMHO. First of all, modelling of supernova extinction has been conducted as far back as 1995 - there's nothing novel about the idea anymore. Secondly, at least since 1999 the hard evidence has been building that in fact several extinction events are attributable to cosmic rays - it's not just a "what-if" scenario..

[PatrickHenry]

A strange article ...

I'm just the ping list guy.

[roaddog727]

Ok.

Here's a stupid questions:

How do these scientists know that we in fact HAD an ozone layer way back when?

[AntiGuv]

How do these scientists know that we in fact HAD an ozone layer way back when?

Because ozone is produced whenever an oxygen molecule O2 is split by ultraviolet waves from the sun and the stray oxygen atoms then attach to another O2 oxygen molecule, creating an O3 molecule - ozone. The electrical discharge of lightning also produces ozone and we know both phenomena (sunlight & lightning + oxygen) have been around since way back when.

The ozone has a very short half-life (less than five days) so it has to be continually recycled, so that's how we also know that the current ozone layer isn't just an accumulation over the eons. Finally, ozone is vitally important to complex life as we know it, because the UV rays would cause irreparable damage otherwise. Since there was complex life, there must've been an ozone layer.

[dfwgator]

Were the explosions near Uranus?

[Rudder]

A gamma-ray burst originating within 6,000 light years from Earth...

T1--explosion. T2--6,000+ years later--Earth gets the blast.

Whatever we're afraid of, it's already happened.

[reg45]

Only after I eat chili.

[LiteKeeper]

YEC INTREP

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[doc30]

... I fear the thread's gone downhill already,

That's OK. I get much entertainment from reading the comments from non-scientists and anti-scientists post. It is quite humorous and lets me know I have job security :)

[doc30]

Your refrences are very interesting. I wonder if anyone has tried to map the Fe60 distribution. Since a gamma ray burst would, in principle last only for a few moments, a map of the distribution of the altered isotopes would reveal which hemisphere was affected and what direction the burst came from. Too bad stellar drift would make that information pointless.

[Starrgaizr]

[SunkenCiv]

This topic is from April 2005.

[SunkenCiv]

This topic was posted 4/12/2005, thanks again doc30.

---

join or quit view topics view or post blog bookmark post new topic subscribe

---

The rest of the gammarayburst keyword:

• Astronomy Picture of the Day - X-Ray Rings Around a Gamma Ray Burst [10/17/2022]
• Strange Long-Lasting Pulse of High-Energy Radiation Swept Over Earth [10/17/2022]
• Scientists Just Detected a Colossal Gamma-Ray Burst, And It's a Record-Breaker [10/12/2022]
• Brighter Than a Billion Billion Suns: Gamma-Ray Bursts Continue to Surprise [07/02/2021]
• Weird nearby gamma-ray burst defies expectations [06/03/2021]
• Huge red star might explode soon and next few weeks are critical [Betelgeuse update] [02/10/2020]
• Astronomers Detect a Burst of Gravitational Waves From The Direction of Betelgeuse [01/20/2020]
• An 'unknown' burst of gravitational waves just lit up Earth's detectors [01/15/2020]
• Astronomers Have Tracked a Repeating Radio Signal Across Space to an Unexpected Origin [01/07/2020]
• Three supermassive black holes found lurking in one galaxy [11/25/2019]
• 'Biggest explosion since the Big Bang': Gamma ray burst in a distant galaxy breaks [tr] [11/20/2019]
• Ancient Neutron-Star Crash Made Enough Gold and Uranium to Fill Earth's Oceans [05/13/2019]
• Ice cores reveal huge solar storm struck Earth around 660 BC [03/12/2019]
• Colliding neutron stars shot a light-speed jet through space [02/26/2019]
• Jet from Neutron-Star Merger GW170817 Appeared to Move Four Times Faster than Light [09/13/2018]
• Physicists Have Created an Artificial Gamma Ray Burst in the Lab [01/20/2018]
• NASA Says Indian Scientist's Theory Is Correct, Black Holes Don't Really Exist [11/29/2015]
• Over A Thousand Years Ago, The Sun Exploded -- And Changed Life On Earth Forever [11/16/2015]
• Black hole awakens after 26 years [11/05/2015]
• Astronomers Discover a New Class of Freakishly Dense, Compact Galaxies [08/04/2015]
• Astronomers unveil the farthest galaxy [05/05/2015]
• Astronomy Picture of the Day -- Infrared Orion from WISE [01/18/2015]
• Scientists witness massive gamma-ray burst, don't understand it [11/22/2013]
• Astronomy Picture of the Day -- Earth's Major Telescopes Investigate GRB 130427A [05/08/2013]
• Did An 8th Century Gamma Ray Burst Irradiate Earth? [01/21/2013]
• UM Scientists Hear 'Scream' As Star Is Devoured By Black Hole [08/07/2012]
• Neutrons Become Cubes Inside Neutron Stars [08/11/2011]
• Possibly the most distant object known [07/18/2011]
• Astronomy Picture of the Day -- Stardust and Betelgeuse [06/28/2011]
• Unusual gamma-ray flash may have come from star being eaten by massive black hole [06/16/2011]
• The Farewell Dossier (How the CIA blew up the Trans-Siberian pipeline with pirated software) [09/23/2010]
• Is Betelgeuse about to blow? (going supernova in weeks or just another breathless rumor?) [06/01/2010]
• Astronomy Picture of the Day [03/18/2010]
• Space Telescope Sifts Earth Storms for Radiation Flashes [02/20/2010]
• Gamma-ray burst restricts ways to beat Einstein's relativity [10/29/2009]
• Giant star Betelgeuse mysteriously shrinking: study [06/09/2009]
• Space Explosion Is Farthest Thing Ever Seen (gamma-ray burst about 13 billion light-years away) [04/28/2009]
• Gamma-Ray Burst Caused Mass Extinction? [04/07/2009]
• Huge gamma-ray blast spotted 12.2 bln light-years from earth [02/19/2009]
• 11 Billion Year-Old Massive Gamma Ray Burst Recorded [01/12/2009]
• Real Death Star Could Strike Earth (fiery pinwheel in space could zap us with 'gamma ray burst') [03/10/2008]
• Supernova Outbreak: X rays signal earliest alert [03/09/2008]
• 'Death Star' Gamma-Ray Gun Pointed Straight at Earth [03/05/2008]
• Biggest black hole in the cosmos discovered (18 billion suns) [01/10/2008]
• 'Shot in the Dark' Star Explosion Stuns Astronomers [12/18/2007]
• The Top Ten Outlandish Mega Disasters (Global Warming Gets No Respect) [10/21/2007]
• NASA to launch Gammy-ray telescope (GLAST) [09/19/2007]
• Gamma-Ray Burst Leads Scientists to See Supernova in Action [08/31/2006]
• Supernova caught in its exploding act (NASA SWIFT detects milder gamma-ray burst GRB, X-ray flash) [08/30/2006]
• Mini Black Holes Might Reveal 5th Dimension [06/26/2006]
• The oldest explosion in the universe [03/22/2006]
• Gamma Ray Bursts, Earthquakes (The 12/26 tsunami), and Superwaves [02/21/2005]
• Starburst Was One of Brightest Objects Observed on Earth [02/18/2005]
• Meet the Indian who took on Stephen Hawking [08/02/2004]
• Astronomy Picture of the Day 06-04-04 [06/04/2004]
• Scientists have new theory on ice age [12/30/2003]
• Did a gamma-ray burst devastate life on Earth? [09/24/2003]
• Astronomy Picture of the Day 4-14-03 [04/14/2003]
• Scientists Worldwide Race To Observe Fading Gamma-Ray Burst [10/11/2002]
• ESA's X-ray space telescope proves supernova can cause mysterious gamma-ray bursts [04/04/2002]