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back to article Boffins find Galaxy making killer radiation, rule out Samsung phone as source

It's not just radio any more: Penn State University boffins have turned up a “fast gamma ray burst” that correlates with a source of a fast radio burst (FRB). The still-mysterious FRBs have excited astro-boffins ever since 2013. In 2015, Australian astronomer Emily Petroff pulled off the first real-time observation of an FRB …

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  1. lukewarmdog
    Mushroom

    Alien TV

    It's clearly the ad-break for the popular alien soap "come slime with me" and everyone has just put the kettle on and taken to "Geddit - the front page of the Universe" to speculate on when Winter will come and just what the hell that even actually is.

    12 0 Reply
    1. You aint sin me, roit
      Reply Icon

      Alien weapons!

      Gamma ray blast is the weapon's discharge... radio emission is the (very short-lived) SOS.

      5 0 Reply
  2. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    "All of these would ruin your day if you happened to live in the same galaxy"

    Um, I do believe that, if you are not specifically in the path of the GRB, you can be a few dozen light-years away from a supernova with nothing to fear. Not immediately anyway.

    If, on the other hand, you are smack in the middle of the GRB cone, tens of thousands of light-years are not going to save you.

    Now, if this gamma radiation is spherical and not targeted, then I'm guessing that the minimum safe distance can be more than a few dozen light-years. Personally, I would prefer being at least a thousand light-years from any such phenomena. Vela's supernova was 800 LY away, and we're fine.

    10 0 Reply
    1. Nano nano
      Reply Icon

      Re: "All of these would ruin your day if you happened to live in the same galaxy"

      You could be on the far side of your planet ... or in a gas cloud / nebula ... all of which would save you from gamma-cookery.

      0 1 Reply

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken
      Reply Icon

      Re: "All of these would ruin your day if you happened to live in the same galaxy"

      I thought we were supposed to lie down and put a paper bag over our heads and everything would be peachy were something like that to happen?

      4 0 Reply
      1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken
        Reply Icon

        Re: "All of these would ruin your day if you happened to live in the same galaxy"

        Not paper bags. What was I thinking? You'd obviously need one of these. Sorry.

        3 0 Reply
  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Aliens!

    - Rimmer

    2 0 Reply
    1. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: Aliens!

      Quagaaaars!!

      0 0 Reply
  4. Tom 7

    This is why intelligent life is so hard to find

    its had its DNA reset to chemicals.

    2 0 Reply
  5. Paul Kinsler

    [mathematics] "frightens even physicists"

    There is also an interesting article/comment/reply sequence discussing this here (all in NJP hence open access)

    http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/17/1/013036

    http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/18/11/118003

    http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/18/11/118004

    1 0 Reply
  6. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Thumb Up

    "no existing models predict that we would see an FRB in these cases”

    So exciting times for theoretical physics then.

    1 0 Reply
  7. Andy Non Silver badge
    Coat

    It's obviously...

    Darth Vader trying out the death star.

    0 0 Reply
    1. Unicornpiss
      Reply Icon

      Re: It's obviously...

      You beat me to it... damn you!

      0 0 Reply
  8. ecofeco Silver badge

    Love the title

    That is all.

    0 0 Reply
  9. GrapeBunch

    The Inferno

    Fred (and Geoffrey) Hoyle (of Steady State Cosmology fame) in 1973 wrote a novel The Inferno about the effects on earth-life of what seemed to be a Nova rather too close for comfort. This is the book where the Astronomers and the Physicists get together in a room at an Observatory in Australia, figuring out how close this thing need be to fry us, the Astronomers start talking about kiloparsecs, and the Physicists look back blankly. "What the devil is a parsec?" Too funny. Then pages of equations...

    My first computer, in 1979, was a Quasar Data Products-100. In those days a Quasar was the most powerful known source of radiation in the Universe, though I guess now that would be a Samsungsar. Sic transit lumina.

    0 0 Reply

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