Then we have the GRB issue...

"Actually in our celestial neighborhood (if you want to call it that), we have a very, very bad actor."

One of my good buddies always tells me I am about as cheerful as a thunderstorm during a June picnic. I am really trying to get better - really. That being said, let's talk about a GRB event. That would be a Gamma Ray Burst. I have addressed this before, but not for a while. What stimulated me was seeing a old Science Channel program describing a GRB event. I almost forgot how scary these things are. And how there is not one ding dang thing we could do about it should one approach the Earth.

Now the good news, and the not so good news. Actually in our celestial neighborhood (if you want to call it that), we have a very, very bad actor. And his (or her) name is Wolf-Rayet-104. First the bad news. It is a star who is ready to give up the ghost so to speak. And from the way this star is positioned, Earth is in its sites. Once it explodes, the resulting GRB could wipe out all life on Planet Earth for millennia to come.

Now the good news. It has not happened as yet.

Now the neutral news. If this star exploded, it happened just a bit before the birth of Christ - like about 6,000 years before. And if it did explode that long ago, the clock is set. The soup has been made. Or whatever else analogy you want to use. 

One more piece of good news. If a GRB were ever to hit the Earth, we would not have to spend days, weeks or months worrying about it. Nope. We would not know until the moment it hit. The reason is a GRB travels at the speed of light. As do light waves we pick up on our telescopes. So one day (or evening), we would look up in the sky and see a flash. Then it would be over. It would be an ELE - an Extinction Level Event. 

What is the bottom line? Life here is fragile. It can end very quickly. With an asteroid, a comet, a GRB, the Yellowstone Caldera erupting, or just mankind doing what mankind does to each other. What can we do? Something most of our parents taught us. Live every day like it was the last. Enjoy life. Because truly, it might be the last.