Gamma-Ray Bursts: Statistical Analysis as to Why it's so very Quiet Out There

A new paper has been released detailing statistical analysis of the frequency of gamma-ray bursts (GRB) and outlying why it is a limiting factor in life’s development in the galaxy. The paper is located here:

arxiv.org...

There are several interesting takeaways from this paper. First the paper concludes that there was a 50% chance that GRB lead to at least one of the mass extinction events on Earth over the last 500 Myr. Take your pick as to what mass extinction event to tie into GRB, as the majority of them are very poorly understood. The Permian–Triassic extinction event would seem like the most likely candidate, where up to 96% of marine and 70% of land life suddenly disappeared from the fossil records. It’s a pure guess on my part, as conversely there is a 50% chance a GRB did not occur in the last 500 Myr. It now has to be part of the conversation when discussing mass extinction events.

Next, from a statistical standpoint, there is a high probability that life would has been totally wiped off the face of the planet at some point, at least once, between when it first appeared ~3.5 Gyr and today. Keep in mind it only took ~700 Myr the dominate life on Earth to go from the first worm like creatures to iPhone 6 obsessed apex predators. This leaves us with an opening to rewrite the narrative of just what might have occurred between 3.5 and 0.7 Gyr in the past.

Lastly, and what I find the most interesting is that this could be the single biggest limiting factor for life’s development “out there.” This is the portion of the paper that I need sometime to digest, but I feel will have the biggest impact in our quest for life outside of the blue and seemingly very lucky little marble we call home.

I am sure there are other implications that can be derived from this papers analysis. I’m interested in hearing some of those outside the box thoughts that I have come to expect from ATS.

a reply to: slip2break

It is just as possible however, that a Gamma burst was a factor in shunting life into existence, is it not? Certainly the building blocks would have to be there, but we still have no idea how the first spark of life came about, despite the very interesting theories which currently prevail. No matter how fine our understanding of how the components came into existence might be, we still have no clue what so ever, as to what lead to the soup we used to be a part of, suddenly starting to coalesce into more complex forms. No idea what so ever.

Was it a burst of random electrical activity? Was it exposure of some exotic compounds to a radiation source? Was it a fat gout of gamma rays slamming across the interstellar divide? Interesting area of study, but not an area lacking in grey space!

You're right, but in a different way.

GRBs are industrial accidents. As a species evolves to the point that they discover really advanced physics, they think they can control things that they're really not quite ready for, and, well, that mystical magical free energy source in the equations leads them to make the Big Mistake. BZZT! and yet another system is scoured clean of life.

Alas.

I am not sure if I think outside or inside a box but, if when we look out there we see thing that are older because of the speed of light , shouldn't that make us the youngest place in the universe ? I mean if we consider that some galaxies probably don't even exist because of how far they are away and how long it takes for the light to get here . I have a hard time ,thinking about stuff in these ways . ...peace

a reply to: TrueBrit

A lot of people seem to forget that the difference between physical mass and life is simply in how it is arranged.

The keys to life are all there, In each particle. It just takes the proper dance to turn the atomic motors and gears into a mechanism of precision and function.

Our body is still only made of 4 basic elements in most abundance Carbon Nitrogen Oxygen and Hydrogen.
Together with those elements alone we get Air. Isn't that something funny to put into perspective?

We breath in what we are made of, Of course the percentages vary and there are subtle gases like hylium as well as minerals and metals like iron magneium boron sodum ect ect But me main components besides the trace minerals are the 4 basic elements i mentioned.

And of course these trace don't have all atoms the basic elements have because the trace minerals are elements themselves

So literally everything we are made of already exists externally. So what makes us different? It's the way the Atom's are arranged into *Living* Molecules.

I'm sure there is some force that would unlock the living energy within mass to create apoptosis. But i believe that such an event would be rare in many instances.

Life may spread from a newly created galaxy in such a way, But after that. Planetary collisions *That contained life* Send asteroids hurling through space that eventually strike a planet like our own in the sheer probability of it all.

It very well could seed life, Likewise. Advanced organisms such as a spore or insects could colonize planets via Asteroid collisions specifically.

WE are a T0 race, And it's very possible plants, insects, fungus as well as viruses could be living as T1 *Species* (Their whole animal linage in such a case)

Because of the ability of seeds, Spores, Dormant shells As well as hibernation states well being encased in rock.
There are some amazing organisms that can survive planetary collisions.

Even humans by probability can survive falls from near orbit. It has happened before. There has been quite a few sky divers that couldn't pull their shoot and just straight up fell. And survived. Not everyone dies falling amazing heights. We call them miracles. Now think of organisms that are billions of years old, Not needing to advance more than what it singularly is, Many remain in the basic forms of external bacteria and not internal bacteria. Tho internal bacteria make up all life on planet Earth * Lol* without them we wouldn't have a digestive system.

So if there is proof of anything colonizing planets in the Milky way. It's Tiny Organisms flying in debris from planet to planet. Then lurking in the atmosphere or entering in with the asteroid to become a meteor.

Organisms in asteroids

I'm of the thinking that GRB's can play the role of both life giver AND life taker.

It's possible that energy bursts can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on the situation at hand.

And they may not be as rare as we've calculated them to be... let's face it, our observational view of the universe is but a tiny drop in an unfathomably massive ocean.

Just some food for thought.

I'd accept the suggestion of GRB being a life giver in the context of providing the spark which broke down some primordial organic compound, creating something that somehow became RNA. I would need to see some papers discussing that, and thus far I have come up blank.

The levels of Gamma radiation examined in the paper would be highly destructive to DNA, and I'm pretty sure RNA as well. Its not the sort of thing which would give living systems the evolutionary nudge to become something else. Instead it would totally shut the system down.

I currently support a panspermia model for how life came to Earth, not because I don 't believe it possible that life could spring into existence here; rather because I like how the panspermia model gives you millions, if not billions of Earths where our flavor of life first came into existence. Factoring in The age of our galaxy, ~13 Gyr and the age of our sun, ~5 Gyr you find from a statistical standpoint, this conclusion to be more likely.

Life would have ample time to spring into existence anywhere, even more toward the core where the likelihood of a GRB nears 95% every 0.5 Gyr. If you model how far something traveling even as slowly as a comet, you'd be shocked to find how far it can travel in 1 Gyr. This paper suggests that only somewhere in the outskirts of a galaxy does life have time to develop into something as complex as us.

a reply to: slip2break

I'm thinking more along the lines of energy increasing vibrations in simplex organisms and/or basic elements (long before dna/rna is stuctured), getting the juices flowing per se.

As an example of what I'm talking about: An atom is a form of life... so what causes atoms to cluster and form into more complex groupings ? An increase in energy vibrations ?

Gamma rays or any other wavelengths are all forms of energy. Everything in the universe is made up of energy (atoms), so perhaps it's as simple as energy being the actual basic necessity for life to further develop and advance into complex forms (in whatever form that turns out to be) ?

Gamma radiation is dangerous to most complex lifeforms (that we know of), but maybe it's the opposite at a far more simpler level ?

Energy feeding energy.

originally posted by: CranialSponge
a reply to: slip2break

I'm thinking more along the lines of energy increasing vibrations in simplex organisms and/or basic elements (long before dna/rna is stuctured), getting the juices flowing per se.

Not so much. "Vibrations" in matter are generally thermal, and are fixed depending on the bond type and angle, and the mass of the components of the molecule. There's not really any 'new age' vibrations in there, since those don't exist.

As an example of what I'm talking about: An atom is a form of life... so what causes atoms to cluster and form into more complex groupings ? An increase in energy vibrations ?

An atom is not a form of life. What causes atoms to cluster and form into more complex groupings are what we call electric fields. There are all manner of interatomic bonds you can get from that. Ionic bonds, covalent bonds, even induced dipolar bonds like van der Waals forces.

Gamma rays or any other wavelengths are all forms of energy.

Gamma rays are energetic and can transfer energy to other things. Since they're EM, they have a wavelength. Wavelengths are not forms of energy, although they may indicate the amount of energy in a wave.

Everything in the universe is made up of energy (atoms), so perhaps it's as simple as energy being the actual basic necessity for life to further develop and advance into complex forms (in whatever form that turns out to be) ?

Atoms are matter. Atoms are not energy, although they have an energy equivalence. I would agree that it takes energy to form life, since life as we know it is based on matter and depends on chemical energy.

Gamma radiation is dangerous to most complex lifeforms (that we know of), but maybe it's the opposite at a far more simpler level ?

Gamma rays are energetic enough to cause damage to organic life, because it's ionizing.

a reply to: slip2break

I have always found these so called death stars fascinating, at any moment we could be bathed in a intense beam of Gamma particles and that would be good night for us, of course we hope astronomers would see it coming, I wonder if perhaps more distant gamma bursts may have been partially responsible for some of our own mass extinction's.

Maybe in the far distant future assuming the human race survives long enough our children may one day find the graveyards of lost civilizations who did succumb to just this type of event or perhaps some alien being will one day walk on our world's barren surface lamenting the death of our race who he only know's about because of some relic's left out in our solar system such as ancient space probe's.

Is there a feasable method of sheilding a planet or sections of a planet using some kind of magnetic shell or dense material shielding (perhaps using quantum technology's to harmonize the molecular structure and enhance the materials shielding propertys') and preserve against such event's, have alien races who saw this coming created seed banks of there genetic materials sending them to stay in the shadow of there sun if the star was dense enough to protect them until the event was past then to repopulate and replenish there world's.

Or like us were they short lived selfish egocentric individualist societys that fell through the failings of the few individualts who ruled over the rest of them including individuals superior to themselves from the top of there own metaphysical and very real pyramids of society and power.