Courtesy NASA

In space, stars die very often. But when large stars (unlike our sun) die, that’s when hypernovas are formed.  

One fine day astronomers spotted a huge amount of gamma radiation coming from space. But, how was this formed? What caused this? How powerful is it? Well the answer lay in LARGE dying stars. Let me explain.

When a huge star is dying, the inside of the star is crushed by force from the inside. This amount of force is so large that it creates something very powerful, a black hole. The black hole starts to feed on the star, sucking in a million earth masses PER SECOND!!! But this is too much for the black hole for it cannot manage this much. It then releases a large amount of energy and this is the gamma ray that was spotted by scientists.

If a star were to die out like this near the earth, it would wipe out all of the life. Infact, what was the reason why thousands of healthy trilobites (prehistoric underwater animals) died out one fine day? Scientists believe it is a star close by that wiped out all life on planet earth.

So what are Gamma rays? There are 3 kinds of nuclear radiations that we know of. Alpha, Beta, and Gamma. Alpha is the weakest, it can penetrate through very few things. Beta can penetrate through a lot more than Alpha. But Gamma is very powerful. As a matter of fact Gamma is used in nuclear bombs.

Scientists think that there will be more stars the size of our sun. These will not cause any super or hypernovas. They also believe that life will come to an end with a super or hypernova. But it doesn’t really matter, because if you see a hypernova close by, it’s already going to get you in the next few seconds. It happens so fast that you won’t even feel it.