A Resident’s Guide to Avoiding Deadly Galaxy Explosions

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In: Galaxy research
  • HIGHLIGHTS OF RESEARCH

Astronomers have mapped the most harmless environments to life in the Milky Way over the past 13 billion years.

A burst of space radiation may have caused mass extinction (artist’s impression) at the end of the Ordovician period about 445 million years ago. Credit: Richard Jones / Scientific Photo Library

The Milky Way is a dangerous place, full of exploding stars and bursts of rays that could remove a planet’s protective atmosphere and irradiate all life on the surface. Analysis shows that the galactic quarter most immune to these cosmic killers has shifted over time, moving from the outskirts of the Galaxy to its center.

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Nature 591, 349 (2021)

do I: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-00620-z

Topics

  • Astronomy and astrophysics

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