Extraterrestrial

Could gamma-ray bursts explain the apparent lack of alien civilizations ?

By T.K. Randall
May 2, 2024

Image: Short Gamma-Ray Burst
Credit: International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. da Silva / M. Zamani (NSF's NOIRLab) / CC BY 4.0 (adapted) The question of whether we are alone in the universe remains one of the biggest philosophical conundrums of our time. While it seems almost inconceivable that our civilization is alone in the cosmos, the fact still remains that we have yet to see any evidence to the contrary.

The Fermi paradox, which highlights the contradiction between the likely existence of extraterrestrial civilizations and the fact that we have still never encountered any, seems to suggest that either there are no aliens out there, or they are so rare that it is unlikely we would ever come across them.

Now astronomy professor Dr. Frederick Walter has put forward one possible explanation for why we haven't come into contact with any alien civilizations: perhaps most of them have been wiped out by a cataclysmic galactic event before they even got the chance to venture into space.

The event in question is known as a gamma-ray burst - an extreme, energetic explosion that occurs when a particularly high-mass star implodes, forming either a neutron star or a black hole.

According to NASA, such bursts are "the most powerful class of explosions in the universe".

This means that any civilizations in the path of such a burst are likely to be wiped out almost immediately - a fate that may have already befallen countless alien races across the cosmos.Fortunately, gamma-ray bursts are very rare (especially in our own galaxy), but they do still happen.

"It's a tightly focused beam and if it's directed through the plane of the galaxy, it could basically sterilize about 10 percent of the planets in the galaxy," Dr Walter told Mail Online.

"It's estimated that there is a gamma-ray burst every 100 million years or so, in any galaxy. Over a billion years, on average, you might expect a significant number of civilizations to be eradicated."

"It's just one of many possible explanations, sort of morbid, I suppose."

It has even been theorized that some of the mass extinctions that occurred on our own planet in the distant past may have happened due to gamma-ray bursts.

Thankfully, though, the odds of another one hitting us at any given time are infinitesimally small.

Source: Mail Online

Tags: Alien, Extraterrestrial