Gamma-Rays Explosion

Have you ever wondered what happens 12 billion light years away in space? Think how far that is-our sun is eight light minutes away from earth and Pluto, the lost planet, is twelve light hours away. Now imagine how far away 12 billion light years are?! A magnificent blast of huge gamma rays just occurred in the Carina constellation, which is 12 billion light years away from earth. This produced energies 3,000 to five billion times of visible light. That is a lot! Scientists believe that this blast was as large as 9,000 supernovae-which is a very fierce explosion that happens at the end of a star’s lifetime. “Gamma-ray bursts are the universe’s most luminous explosions…” as said in the article. This was a big deal for scientists. “Studying gamma-ray bursts allows scientists to ‘sample an individual star at a distance where we can’t even see galaxies clearly,’ [Frank] Reddy [the astrophysicist] said.” In my opinion, if explosions like these keep happening over a period of time, even if they are not as big, it will help scientists learn about galaxies very far away. Sooner or later, I believe that scientists will find out if there is life on a planet other than ours. This just brings scientists a step closer.



I got my information from:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090219/sc_afp/sciencespaceastronomy