SUMMARY: Since gamma ray bursts release a torrent of radiation visible across the Universe, it goes without saying that we wouldn't one to blow up near us. Well, don't worry. According to researchers at Ohio State University, our Milky Way is the just wrong type of galaxy for potential bursts - they almost always happen within small, misshapen galaxies that lack heavy chemical elements. That's good news, since a burst within 3,000 light years of the Earth would give us a lethal dose of radiation.

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What do you think about this story? post your comments below.

Check out what Adrian Melott has to say about Stanek's paper:

http://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0604440

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David Alexander Kann
PhD student, Gamma-Ray burst Afterglow Collaboration at ESO
Thueringer Landessternwarte Tautenburg

<span style='color:blue'>Ignite our minds and let's burn brighter
These are the wonders at your feet</span>
<span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%'>- Dark Tranquillity, The Wonders At Your Feet</span>

Thanks Don Alexander. The article did seem to be saying more than could be said. The rebuttle you pointed us to says that the article is just wrong.

On the plus side, the infrequency of mass extinctions with no known other cause suggests that these things are pretty unlikely to be aimed at us when they do happen.

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Forming opinions as we speak

Hmm, interesting. But it makes sense, given the stars needed for a GRB.

But still, Hollywood might capitalize on a sci-fi disaster film like Armegeddon that features a GRB threatening Earth.
At least now we know it's nothing to loose sleep over.

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I calculated the odds of this succeeding versus the odds I was doing something incredibly stupid...and I went ahead anyway. - Crow T. Robot

Godspeed, John Glenn. - Scott Carpenter

And these atomic bombs that science burst upon the world that night were strange even to the men that used them.
- H.G Wells, The World Set Free

To the conspiracy crowd, radiation is a big Boogey Man that inspires terror and death in all who encounter it. - JayUtah