Wow!! A few hours ago, NASAs Swift spacecraft detected a huge explosion in M31, better known as the Andromeda Galaxy. And astronomers suspect it could have been one of the most violent events in the Universe - a gamma ray-burst that, in just a few seconds, could have released as much energy as our Sun in its entire lifetime. If confirmed, this will be the closest gamma-ray burst we’ve ever detected, and will help scientists find out more about these mysterious pulses of energy. Gamma-ray pulses are so powerful, that if one occurred within our galaxy, they could potentially trigger mass extinctions on Earth, explains Dr Alan Duffy, an astronomer at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne. But fortunately this explosion was far enough away to not do damage - the actual event would have happened around two and a half million years ago, with the energy just flying past Earth this morning. While nothing is confirmed as yet, if the reaction of some of the worlds leading astrophysicists on the Twitter hashtag #GRBM31 is anything to go by, this could be HUGE:
Posted on: Wed, 28 May 2014 07:25:39 +0000
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