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Panic button: GRB’s--WTF?!

For many years after they were first observed by astronomers they were highly classified by the United States government, for reasons the government has still not made clear. They’re among the most mysterious astronomical phenomena. Their cause is unknown, and they have been suggested as a possible explanation for the Fermi paradox. “They” are those puzzling, scary gamma ray bursts or GRB’s, only made public in the last couple years despite having been observed for more than a decade.

Puzzling, yes, but you wonder why they’re scary? Well, there’s the matter of the sheer amount of energy released in a GRB--a staggering level that makes a supernova’s flare seem firecracker-sized in proportion. Much of this energy is released as hard radiation that fries everything in its way. If that isn’t enough (after all, astronomical forces are frying and obliterating stuff all the time) there’s the sheer unpredictability of the gamma ray burst. Nobody knows why they happen--or, most ominously, where they’ll happen next.

In other words, the only reason a GRB hasn’t already wiped out all life on Earth is that one hasn’t occurred close enough yet. There’s no way to know whether it ever will, or whether Earth might lie in a somehow protected area of space. And thus the possible answer to Fermi’s paradox. If you don’t already know, Fermi’s paradox asks, “If there’s intelligent life out there, how come it’s not here?” Some astronomers have begun to speculate that, based on the frequency and location of observed GRBs, developing lifeforms are usually incinerated and the planets sterilized long before any intelligent species can become spaceborne.

Which, of course, would be bad odds for Earth.