You all know what a supernova is, right? That's when a star dies and all that energy that makes a star a star explodes, which looks pretty from far away, sure, but it's probably not so great for any alien planets nearby. Well, a hypernova is the term for when what's known as a hypergiant star explodes.
Why would this be bad? Well, a hypergiant star is, uh, hypergiant, which in technical, scientific terms means that it's fucking huge, bros. And when something that big decides to blow, the explosion is much more massive, with a farther reaching impact. You see where I'm going?
The theory goes that a hypernova would produce massive gamma ray bursts, which are bursts of radiation that would shoot through space, devouring everything in their path. Now, the good news is that a hypernova has never actually been observed, so it's just a theory. The bad news is that some experts think this has actually happened before, and that Earth was totally fucked up by it.
Yes, almost 500 million years ago, something called the Ordovician-Silurian Extinction Event took place (which, by the way, is one of at least a half dozen "extinction events" in the history of the planet) and it is believed that one of the causes may have been a rapid disintegration of the ozone layer, which is one of the prime effects of massive gamma ray bombardment.
So, yes, a giant star thousands of light years away could explode (or, if you really want to fuck with your head, already exploded thousands of years ago and just hasn't gotten here yet because it's, well, thousands of light years away.) and that would pretty much be it for us.
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How will the world end?
General FictionLots of people had ideas that the world would never end, but now there's a book that gives crazy yet true ideas that could happen in 1.75bn Years! This has a lot of scientific words in it, so if your not a science wiz then I say go grab a dictionary!
