Our fragile earth and the biggest explosion ever detected

International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/B. O'Connor (UMD/GWU) & J. Rastinejad & W Fong (Northwestern Univ)

In a complete departure to my normal bird oriented blogs, I been reading an article on what was probably the biggest explosion every seen and its effect on our atmosphere.

It was caused by a supermassive star exploding in a supernova leaving behind a black hole. In a few seconds the energy released was equivalent to approximately one thousand times the output of our sun over its entire lifetime! We are actually witnessing an event that took place 2.4 billion years ago, halfway back to when the earth was created. Astonishingly, even though it was a staggering 2.4 billion light years from earth its effects were seen in our atmosphere. Radio transmitters detected a strange disturbance in our atmosphere which is thought to be due to a burst of gamma rays generated in the explosion. If this event had occurred in our stellar neighbour it would have probably wiped out all life on earth. The blast of gamma rays was so bright that it totaly overloaded earth based gamma ray detectors. I've read that if our eyes could detect gamma rays and we were looking up at the time we would have been blinded.

The explosion is the small pink dot right in the centre of the picture

How incredible fragile our earth is when viewed in a cosmic context!

Comments

Albert the Albatross

What is more improbable - a) England’ football team beating Germany in the knockout stages of a major competition b) Seeing an Albatross in England Actually the answer is a) because it has not happened since 1966 rather than b) as Albert the Albatross, as he is affectionally known, has made a number of passing visits to the UK since 1967! On Monday evening reports started to emerge of Albert associating with the Gannet colony at RSPB Bempton Cliffs in Yorkshire, almost one year after his last brief visit to the same site. During the intervening period there have been a number of sightings of Albert across Europe, particularly from the Baltic Sea where he appears to have spent much of the last 12 months. In fact there were reports that he had been attacked and killed in the area by two eagles. Reports of his death were clearly greatly exaggerated! The Black-browed Albatross is circumpolar in the southern oceans but very rarely seen above the equator. If I t

The Hawfinches of the Forest of Dean

Hawfinch - Forest of Dean, winter 2017 A highlight of my winter birding is my annual trip to the Forest of Dean to see Hawfinches. I was unable to go last year due to the post-Christmas lockdown so this year’s visit was even more richly anticipated than normal. Parkend in the Forest of Dean is my usual chosen location for watching Hawfinches. Here the proven technique of using your car as a hide normally works well. I must also say that, after a number of quite strenuous twitches recently, I was also looking forward to a much more leisurely birding session! The story of Hawfinches in the UK is, to my mind at least, a fascinating one. It is what is known as an eruptive species meaning that it occasionally erupts from its traditional breeding grounds to invade on mass countries much further away. This is thought to be driven by a combination of breeding success and local crop failure resulting in not enough food to go around. Records indicate that the Hawfinch was a very rare

Perseverance or sheer stupidly? – The Belted Kingfisher nailed at the 4th attempt!

Belted Kingfisher I have had three failed attempts, or dips as birders call them, to see the Lancashire Belted Kingfisher over the last few weeks, including two harrowing encounters with the slope of death, see here . So when the bird was relocated a few miles away from its original location in an altogether less challenging spot I was soon off on my 4 th attempt to see this truly stunning mega rare vagrant from North America. We had friends from the village coming to dinner on Wednesday night so I really didn’t fancy a strength sapping silly o’clock departure. I hence left home at 07:00 on Wednesday morning and heading north again up the car park previously known as the M6. The Kingfisher had relocated close to Samlesbury at a place called Roach Bridge on the river Darwen. I arrived at 09:30, found a parking spot very close to the bridge, and set off along a muddy footpath towards the reported location. Disconcertingly, many birders were heading back to their cars alr

The Standlake Birder

Search This Blog