'Death Star' Aimed at Earth

An anonymous reader writes "A spectacular, rotating binary star system is a ticking time bomb, ready to throw out a searing beam of high-energy gamma rays that could lead to a major extinction event — and Earth may be right in the line of fire. Australian science magazine Cosmos Magazine reports: 'Though the risk may be remote, there is evidence that gamma ray bursts have swept over the planet at various points in Earth's history with a devastating effect on life. A 2005 study showed that a gamma-ray burst originating within 6,500 light years of Earth could be enough to strip away the ozone layer and cause a mass extinction. Researchers led by Adrian Melott at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, U.S., suggest that such an event may have been responsible for a mass extinction 443 million years ago, in the late Ordovician period, which wiped out 60 per cent of life and cooled the planet.'"

Comments

Slashdot has fallen behind

[syousef]

It use to be that I'd first read this sort of news on slashdot, but either slashdot has fallen behind, or my local paper's improved greatly. I think the former. These days I read about it in the local paper first and a day or two later I read about it on slashdot. Then it gets duped a few days/weeks/months/years later.

Re:lies, Lies, LIES!!!

[ehrichweiss]

I don't think I have ever read that photons travel instantaneously. Care to cite?

Re:I asked GOD

[BungaDunga]

Mod "-1 no paragraphs, run-on sentences".
Here, have a comma. And a period.
,.
May they serve you well.

Re:I asked GOD

[computechnica]

My Favorite passage is in Deuteronomy were you can Rape a virgin and then Buy her for 50 Sheckels

22:28 If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found;

22:29 Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife; because he hath humbled her, he may not put her away all his days.