Chapter 1: Gamma-Ray Burst
Chapter 1: Gamma-Ray Burst
Excluding a purely theoretical conjecture like the big bang of the Universe’s creation, the most terrifying super high-energy explosion the Universe had observed so far was undoubtedly the Gamma-Ray Burst.
This was the most violent big explosion in the Universe, and it truly existed, occurring densely in the vast Outer Space, constantly threatening the existence of Life.
Simply because the Gamma Ray it radiated was sufficient to kill all Life along its path, and the massive Energy released in a short time rivaled the total Energy released by hundreds of Suns over their entire lifetimes.
Even a single photon it emitted frequently had Energy tens of thousands of times that of sunlight.
This Energy, briefly released when massive Stars collapsed and exploded upon exhausting their fuel, was the enemy of Life and the Universe’s strongest killer.
Gamma-Ray Bursts occurred nearly every day in the Universe, and their directions were random; if a planet with Life unfortunately lay on the release path of a Gamma-Ray Burst, the Life on that celestial body would face complete annihilation.
Because they happened so frequently, about one in ten million celestial bodies had been swept over by Gamma-Ray Bursts.
Earth had once been a member of the “Gamma-Ray Burst victims list,” enduring mass extinctions, but it resiliently survived and once again gave birth to Life and civilization after a long period of desolation.
On April 1, 2017, the lovely Earth was about to receive a second visit from the “Death.”
A Neutron Star of extremely high density from billions of light-years away collided with another Neutron Star, resulting in an unprecedented release of a terrifying Gamma-Ray Burst.
The explosion radiated for only forty-two seconds, but this Energy evaporated many Stars along its path, surged out of the galaxy, and propagated through the dark interstellar space for billions of years.
Like a randomly fired “Death stray bullet,” no one wanted to be “hit.”
Life naturally hoped that this unprecedented Gamma-Ray Burst would exhaust its final Energy in interstellar space forever, never entering the next galaxy.
However, contrary to expectations, a Vortex galaxy happened to lie on the ballistic trajectory of this “stray bullet,” allowing the super Energy to plunge into a galaxy hundreds of thousands of light-years in diameter.
It was the unlucky Milky Way, winning the lottery for a second time after its baptism five hundred million years ago.
Of course, compared to the vastness of Outer Space, the propagation path of the Gamma-Ray Burst was not very wide; if possible, it could easily sweep through part of the galaxies and ultimately be swallowed by the Galactic Core Black Hole in the center—this was the best outcome and the most common one.
After all, on the scale of the Milky Way, Energy of this magnitude was insignificant; the Galactic Core Black Hole could accept it all and devour it completely.
Only Life truly regarded this as a disaster of extinction.
Regrettably, a galaxy nurturing a Life-bearing planet happened to orbit on the propagation path, making the civilizations on it the “grand prize winners.”
And because the Gamma-Ray Burst struck at the speed of light, the civilizations on that Life planet would not realize their good luck until the moment of destruction.
This “lucky winner” was Earth.
A super Gamma-Ray Burst approached from a unique angle; before it could evaporate the Sun, it first collided with Earth.
This time, unlike the one five hundred million years earlier, its Energy level was unprecedentedly powerful; although much Energy was consumed during propagation, it was still sufficient to ensure Earth could never nurture Life again and would remain in extreme conditions until its end.
A total kill: Life on Earth would not react at all, instantly ending in Finality in the split second of experiencing it.
Yet, in that second, nature played a colossal joke; the Universe itself was full of infinite coincidences, always teeming with countless unknowns and miracles.
The terrifying Gamma-Ray Burst strangely disappeared at the moment it reached Earth’s surface and entered the atmosphere.
Not only the surface Life, but even the atmosphere itself suffered little damage; that immense Energy that could make the Sun tremble simply vanished, as if an invisible space had swallowed it all.
…
The first to detect this Gamma-Ray Burst was the Spitzer Observatory.
It was located in deep space orbit at the second Lagrange point and was on the other side of Earth during the Gamma-Ray Burst’s arrival, thus not attacked; an hour later, it detected abnormal residual visible light and radiation background in Outer Space.
Massive observational data transmitted to the ground immediately caused panic at NASA.
“A Gamma-Ray Burst? Visible light was detected near Earth’s planetary orbit? So close?”
“Moreover, the Energy level was very high! Based on the residue, during propagation, it exceeded the 1999 observation by about ten times!”
“What! Dear God, are we still alive?”
In 1999, Earth had observed a distant super Gamma-Ray Burst with Energy equivalent to the total Energy released by the entire Milky Way over two thousand years.
That had already been the largest Gamma-Ray Burst observed in human history, and now they observed an even larger one, breaking the record.
Its Energy index rivaled the total Energy release of the entire Milky Way over twenty thousand years!
This terrifying astronomical figure was the peak value at the emission point; after billions of years of propagation decay, on arrival at Earth, it was insufficient to destroy Earth’s molecular structure, but its radiation alone was enough to devastate Earth’s ecology, turning it into Hell.
At that very moment, Earth’s society seemed to have experienced nothing, continuing to operate peacefully.
Even during this period, no space stations had docking missions, and no casualties occurred in the space station laboratories; otherwise, at the time of the Gamma-Ray Burst, crew in the Low Earth Orbit space stations like the Tiangong Number Two would have been the first to perish without exception.
This bizarre phenomenon left space agency workers bewildered.
Staff at observatories in various countries that later observed the “afterglow” residue were all terrified, turning pale and muttering with intense hindsight fear.
“How come we’re not dead?”
Some engineers from China and Europe could not stand at all, slumping down and trembling.
This was incredibly lucky, lucky to the point of being unscientific and unreasonable!
It could only be explained by coincidence, an unknown coincidence, perhaps extremely complex, that spared Earth disaster.
The fact of Earth’s miraculous survival alone would have researchers in the aerospace field dedicating their entire lives to studying it for decades, even centuries to come.
In the hours after the event, a joint research team formed in the global aerospace field; experts and engineers from China, Europe, and the United States shared data and investigated this “doubtful fact of Earth’s survival.”
Their first step in the inquiry was deciding whether to refute the fact that the Gamma-Ray Burst had visited Earth; if scientific grounds rejected it, treating the afterglow in space as an astronomical illusion, then Earth’s survival made perfect sense.
However, ironclad data showed it could not be any optical illusion, as too many objects in Outer Space had suffered intense Gamma-Ray impact, directly rendering many affected satellites inoperable.
“Was Earth really on the path? Or did it just graze the edge?”
“No… no, it directly struck Earth… the source direction was toward the North Pole, bypassing the Sun and Jupiter. Look! This is the visible light spectrum of the Gamma-Ray Burst afterglow—it couldn’t be clearer, entering the ecliptic plane at an angle and hitting Earth! It reached the atmosphere!”
“Unbelievable; the Gamma-Ray Burst passed through Earth, and we’re unscathed?”
“No, no, no… not passed through! See! The propagation path abruptly ends at Earth, with no radiation residue on the other side, meaning the Gamma-Ray Burst vanished upon reaching Earth!”
“Vanished… what does that mean? Absorbed by Earth? Or refracted by the atmosphere?”
“Impossible! Do you know how much Energy is required to destroy Earth? Expressed as yield, only seventy giga-tons of TNT!”
“Giga” represented ten to the power of twenty, a huge unit.
But this much TNT explosive yield was negligible compared to the Gamma-Ray Burst’s total Energy.
The physicist said, “The Sun releases a day’s worth of Energy equivalent to eighty giga-tons of TNT, enough to destroy Earth once! With ten times that, the Energy would blow Earth into dust, sending the debris flying out of the Solar System.”
“Imagine, what’s the total Energy of the Sun over ten billion years?”
Another physicist said, “I’ve calculated it: about 1.8 times ten to the forty-eighth power joules. Enough to annihilate Earth… ten to the twenty-fifth power times.”
“Right! And that’s just the Energy released by the Gamma-Ray Burst in 0.0002 seconds. Now, do you still think Earth could absorb this Energy? As for refraction… even if our atmosphere coincidentally and miraculously refracted that Energy in a way we don’t understand, where did it go?”
“We only observed the afterglow of the Gamma-Ray Burst’s arrival… but no trace of departure… could it all be…”
“God’s protection?”
After saying this, everyone fell silent.
With their knowledge, they were powerless to solve this mystery, feeling profoundly ignorant.
Though they greatly celebrated being alive, as scientists, they were deeply saddened to find no rational explanation for humanity’s luck.
The first meeting of the joint research group concluded only by naming this Gamma-Ray Burst “Gentle Death.”
It was April 1; in the city, it might be April Fool’s Day, but in the aerospace fields of various countries, high-level scholars treated it as a fortunate day for Humans, not a joke.
For now, none planned to make this event public, though it wouldn’t be long before many civic groups observed the “Death’s” afterglow.
Amid all the confusion, the experts and scholars had no idea that at the moment the “Gentle Death” arrived and vanished.
In a fourth-tier inland city in China, a young man collapsed unconscious.
He was merely a passerby on the street; one second he was striding along spiritedly, the next, he seemed to be knocked out by something.
Though there appeared to be no external injuries, kind-hearted passersby stepped forward.
Confirming he was truly unconscious, they immediately dialed 120 and rushed him to the hospital.
The entire episode was a trivial matter in the city, not even newsworthy.
No one foresaw that it could have any profound impact.