How safe do you think you are? you got your house with good gate , a security alarm system , police is near by and government assuring safety of its citizens. Sounds pretty promising to me if you think "relatively" . But in absolute safety in earth is like a biggest joke you can think of. Our solar system may be look bigger, but compared to universe , i don't think earth can be counted as size of a virus. So this big universe there are lots of mass extinction events can be occurred in any second. today i would like to talk about a celestial event called "Gamma-ray Burst" or GRB.
Gamma-rays bursts are in very simple terms a powerful energy blasts. most of them take the shape of a simple line while there can be different dimensional type of energy blasts. So how can they occur ? when a Supernova start to collapse to form a neutron star or a black hole it emits energy blasts, When galaxies combine with each other throws energy blasts ,when supernova rotating provide energy blasts , when binary stars merging provide energy blasts or blackholes it self burst out energy blasts (Which we have no idea why) .
The Gamma ray burst typically goes between few milliseconds to several hours . The scientists expected that a couple of seconds of gamma ray bursts release energy more than our sun has ever produced. So you understand the idea of a caught to a gamma ray burst. Surviving is simple almost null.
So now the question is not how but when this going to happen right? . the good news is this is extremely rare event. few hundred years is a very big time for us , but for the universe that is not even worth mentioning. Therefor the occurrences of a gamma ray burst directed at earth is very rare. But i don't think we know at least 0% of the universe. So might as well as we earn the lucky ticket to witness it and goto heaven and bragging about it. But i hope we are not so lucky enough to enjoy that feast.
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further readings - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma-ray_burst