The Ancient Space Storm That Struck the Earth


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NASA / P. Cowperthwaite / University of Maryland

A still from a computer simulation showing two black holes merging.



(Photos: Scenes From the International Space Station)


(More: Solar Blob Attacks the Earth!)











I guess if such an event was about to happen or had already happened, we would not know till it hit us. Or, is there a way to observe potentially colliding or exploding stars and then predict and extrapoltae the time line so we know when something like this might hit us again? Remember, even if the Sun were to disappear, we would not feel the effects for 8 minutes 22 seconds. Unless, gravitational effects are felt faster than speed of light, there is hardly any fool proof way to know if something like this is headed our way.


I know it's sort of splitting hairs here, but since I'm curious I'll ask:  If the distance of the colliding black holes/neutron stars were around 12,000 LY away, wouldn't the actual collision have to have taken place 12,000 years PRIOR to "sometime between the spring of 774 A.D and the summer of 775"?

Or do gamma rays travel that much faster than the speed of light?  Not being snarky; really am just curious.

My understanding is that the effects would have actually hit Earth during that time frame, whereas the actual "cataclysmic event" would have occurred thousands of years prior to that date; 12,000 years prior if traveling at the speed of light from an event 12,000 LY away.


If we were to get hit with gamma rays would pretty much wipe us out.