Oooooh. Supernova. Oh, sh*t!

[JonScribe]

Cool, I thought, scientists may get a good luck at a supernova.

@Boston Globe

Astronomers around the world are pointing their telescopes toward the expected appearance of a new supernova - the explosion of a massive and very distant star.

The excitement follows the detection Feb.17 of an unprecedented blast of high-energy radiation, called a gamma ray burst, from a galaxy 440 million light-years from Earth.

Then I read this paragraph:

@Boston Globe

Had the explosion gone off in our own Milky Way galaxy, Marshall said, “we’d be in a lot of trouble. Depending on how close it was, it could remove our atmosphere, and there would be an enormous radiation bath.”

Listen, I’m all in favor of a good fireworks show, but not so much with the losing of the atmosphere and the radiation bath, and the dying and the screaming and the hurn.

Bad enough we have to worry about meteors smacking into home base, now we have to fret over supernovae in our own galaxy. How the hell have we survived this long?

[JonScribe]

Oops. Double-post. Would a mod please close this one before the board collapses on itself and sends out a GRB?