Got sunblock?

[unixronin]

Then again, don't bother.  If you were anywhere near GRB080319B (astronomically speaking), sunblock was probably moot.  Astronomers picked it up yesterday; it's the brightest gamma-ray burster (in visible light) ever detected, 7.5 billion light years away (more than halfway to the edge of the visible Universe), yet so bright that if you'd been looking in the right direction when it went off, you could have seen it with unaided eyes.  To put it into perspective, as Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy Blog did, in the few seconds duration of a gamma-ray burster event, it emits more energy than our Sun will produce in its entire ten-billion-year stellar lifetime.

(Pointer kudos to james_nicoll)

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/crossfire_/]

GRBs freak me out.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't say they freak me out, but I hope one doesn't happen around here any time soon. They're the most energetic known events in the universe.

[http://users.livejournal.com/crossfire_/]

At least they seem to be limited to an earlier era of the universe.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

So it appears. But we can't say for sure, because we have very little idea yet what causes them. We assume they're early-universe events because the ones we've observed so far are extremely distant. But for all we know, all that means is that they are extremely rare events.

[http://users.livejournal.com/crossfire_/]

Yup. Which is exactly why they freak me out.

[smandal.livejournal.com]

When Betelgeuse (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betelgeuse) pops it'll be something. Our atmosphere will protect us from the UV bombardment, but stuff in orbit will fry.

At least there will be some nice neutrino signals for us particle physicists to look at :)