Gama ray bursts

[kg]

The mystery of these objects when first discovered was that the flashes from the gamma ray bursts were not associated with bright flashes of visible light.  If your typical gamma ray burst was caused by a nuclear bomb or blobs of matter and antimatter colliding how bright and noticeable would it be?   

 

[DrRocket]

<p><BR/>Replying to:<BR/><DIV CLASS='Discussion_PostQuote'>The mystery of these objects when first discovered was that&nbsp;the flashes&nbsp;from the&nbsp;gamma ray bursts&nbsp;were not associated with bright flashes of visible light.&nbsp; If your typical gamma ray burst was caused by a nuclear bomb or blobs of matter and antimatter colliding how bright and noticeable would it be?&nbsp; &nbsp; <br />Posted by kg</DIV></p><p>I am not quite sure what your question is.&nbsp; Here is a link to an article on gamma ray bursts.&nbsp; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_ray_burst</p><p>There is no thought of which I am aware that a typical gamma ray burst is caused by either colliding antimatter or by a nuclear bomb.&nbsp; I would think, however, that if you were very close to either&nbsp;event it would be pretty bright.&nbsp; You would defintely notice it, but only for a brief moment,&nbsp;probably not long enough for conscious recognition.&nbsp; <br /></p> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[MeteorWayne]

<p><BR/>Replying to:<BR/><DIV CLASS='Discussion_PostQuote'>I am not quite sure what your question is.&nbsp; Here is a link to an article on gamma ray bursts.&nbsp; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_ray_burstThere is no thought of which I am aware that a typical gamma ray burst is caused by either colliding antimatter or by a nuclear bomb.&nbsp; I would think, however, that if you were very close to either&nbsp;event it would be pretty bright.&nbsp; You would defintely notice it, but only for a brief moment,&nbsp;probably not long enough for conscious recognition.&nbsp; <br />Posted by DrRocket</DIV><br /><br />Any kind of imaginable nuclear bomb would be vastly (orders of magnitude) underpowered for a GRB. </p><p>Even assuming (as we do) that the beam is focused at us.</p><p>Colliding matter and antimatter has a very sharp and distinctive energy level of 511 kev. That's not what causes GRB's.</p><p>&nbsp;As for the brief moment, it would be very brief as your nerons were toasted... <img src="http://sitelife.space.com/ver1.0/content/scripts/tinymce/plugins/emotions/images/smiley-wink.gif" border="0" alt="Wink" title="Wink" /></p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>

 

[DrRocket]

<p><BR/>Replying to:<BR/><DIV CLASS='Discussion_PostQuote'>....Colliding matter and antimatter has a very sharp and distinctive energy level of 511 kev. ...Posted by MeteorWayne</DIV></p><p>Correct me if I an mistaken, but I believe the 511 Kev line is for electron positron annihilation.&nbsp; I would think that annihilation between antiparticles with different rest mass would produce photons of a different energy.<br /></p> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[derekmcd]

<p><BR/>Replying to:<BR/><DIV CLASS='Discussion_PostQuote'>Correct me if I an mistaken, but I believe the 511 Kev line is for electron positron annihilation.&nbsp; I would think that annihilation between antiparticles with different rest mass would produce photons of a different energy. <br /> Posted by DrRocket</DIV></p><p>I'd have to agree with ya.&nbsp; Proton/anti-proton annihiliation would seem like it would release far more energy.&nbsp;</p> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div> </div><br /><div><span style="color:#0000ff" class="Apple-style-span">"If something's hard to do, then it's not worth doing." - Homer Simpson</span></div> </div>

 

[DrRocket]

<p><BR/>Replying to:<BR/><DIV CLASS='Discussion_PostQuote'>I'd have to agree with ya.&nbsp; Proton/anti-proton annihiliation would seem like it would release far more energy.&nbsp; <br />Posted by derekmcd</DIV></p><p>511 Kev happens to be the rest mass of the electron.<br /></p> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[kg]

<p><BR/>Replying to:<BR/><DIV CLASS='Discussion_PostQuote'>Any kind of imaginable nuclear bomb would be vastly (orders of magnitude) underpowered for a GRB. Even assuming (as we do) that the beam is focused at us.Colliding matter and antimatter has a very sharp and distinctive energy level of 511 kev. That's not what causes GRB's.&nbsp;As for the brief moment, it would be very brief as your nerons were toasted... &nbsp;&nbsp; <br />Posted by MeteorWayne</DIV><br /><br />Sorry I guess I worded the question badly.&nbsp; The Vela satellite program that discovered GRBs was built to look for nuclear testing both on earth and in space.&nbsp; The satellites would detect&nbsp;a nuclear explosion&nbsp;as a flash of visible light with a specific light curve and be confirmed by the detection of gamma rays.&nbsp; When the GRB's were first detected the&nbsp;scientists&nbsp;working on the project could not conceive of a mechanism that could&nbsp;produce such high energy radiation with out any apparent counterpart in any other part of the spectrum.&nbsp; They were so taken aback by these results that they shared the data from their top secret program with the larger science community&nbsp;to help them figure out if these&nbsp;gamma rays were produced&nbsp;inches from the satellites or at furthest reaches of the universe!&nbsp; ...so now we seem to have an&nbsp;idea of&nbsp;how some of these things are produced and from how far away.</p><p>&nbsp; So my question is this... If you build a satellite to look for clandestine nuclear tests and you start finding&nbsp;unexpected GRBs&nbsp;how much of a discrepancy is there between the energy detected from these objects and what you would&nbsp;have expected to see if they had come from any known gamma ray source?&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>

 

[derekmcd]

Not sure if this is what your looking for, but a gamma ray burst produces more energy in 1 second than the sun will produce in billion years,&nbsp; the sun produces more energy in 1 sec than a few trillion atomic bombs (there is an equivalent, but I forget the exact number).<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div> </div><br /><div><span style="color:#0000ff" class="Apple-style-span">"If something's hard to do, then it's not worth doing." - Homer Simpson</span></div> </div>