> http://www.itwire.com/content/view/17262/1066/
>
> Just happened across this, a gamma ray burster that was 
> visible to the
> naked eye, from 7.5 BLY!

And that was just the small visible component.
Anyone wearing Gamma Ray spectacles and looking from above 
the atmosphere would have been blinded. But, odds are such a 
person would have had graver things to convern them at that 
stage.

A GRB or a Super Nova from a star in closer parts of our 
Galaxy would be able to destroy all life on earth. 
Fortunately, perhaps, no such events seem likely any time 
soon.

<Brain hurt mode on>

I wonder what sort of payload required something as immense 
as  GRB 080319B to launch it, and I wonder where it's going? 
With that sort of a launch kick it will be there in no time, 
almost (from a payload frame of reference). Stopping is 
(now) the hard part. As we are, accoding to generally 
current beliefs, halfway to any place it could have been 
going then maybe I should have asked "... where it was 
going?" If it's coming here then it will be 'some while yet' 
as the small difference between C and what you can manage to 
accelerate non rest-mass-free stuff to does add up rather 
over such distances.



            Russell 

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