Extinction by Gamma-Ray Burst

Find out about the last time and the next time the Earth will be hit by a Gamma-ray Burst. You can learn more about your personal DNA story by going to Get your own Space Time t­shirt at Tweet at us! @pbsspacetime Email us! pbsspacetime [at] gmail [dot] com Comment on Reddit: Help translate our videos! Previous Episode: The Origin of Our First Interstellar Visitor Gamma-ray bursts are much less common than regular supernovae, and in fact regular supernovae can do just as much damage as a GRB. However, for a supernova to produce the same effects it needs to be much closer – within 20 to 30 light years. There are definitely no stars in that range that could explode any time soon. However the Sun isn’t stationary. It orbits the Milky Way, and its galactic neighbors come and go. Maybe in a few 250-million-year orbits we stellar timebomb will wander into our vicinity. However it’s really the GRBs that are most likely to hit us first, and hit us more often. We should certainly expect one in the next half-to-one-billion years, even if it’s not WR104. Hosted by Matt O'Dowd Written by Matt O'Dowd Produced by Rusty Ward Graphics by Kurt Ross Assistant Editing and Sound Design by Mike Petrow and Meah Denee Barrington Made by Kornhaber Brown (www.kornhaberbrown.com) Big Bang CoolAsCats David Nicklas William James Sidis Quasar Tambe Barsbay Mayank M. Mehrota Mars Yentur Mark Rosenthal Dean Fuqua Y2 Justin Lloyd Tambe Barsbay Hypernova Edmund Fokschaner Max Levine Matthew O’Connor Eugene Lawson Martha Hunt Joseph Salomone Chuck Zegar Jordan Young Ratfeast John Hofmann Mechanically Cryptic Denys Ivanov Nick Virtue Alexey Eromenko Nicholas Rose Scott Gossett Mark Dykstra Chris Hicks Mark Vasile Patrick Murray Sultan Alkhulaifi Alex Seto Michal-Peanut Karmi Erik Stein Daniel Lyons Kevin Warne JJ Bagnell J Rejc Amy Jie Avi Goldfinger John Pettit Shannan Catalano Florian Stiglmayr Benoit Pagé-Guitard Nathan Leniz Jessica Fraley Loro Lukic Brandon Labonte David Crane Greg Weiss