NASA warns of a new threat to life on planets like Earth

2023-04-21 12:41:14

NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes identify a new threat to life on planets like Earth. The key would be in the explosion of a star. A study indicates that an exploding star may pose more risks to nearby planets than previously thought.

The threat occurs in a phase in which intense X-rays of exploding stars can affect atmospheres of planets at a distance of up to 160 light years, NASA explains in a statement. “If a torrent of X-rays passed over a nearby planet, the radiation would severely alter the planet’s atmospheric chemistry,” said Ian Brunton of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who led the study.

The supernova explosions were centered on the danger posed by intense radiation produced by a supernova in the days and months after the explosion, and the energetic particles that arrive hundreds or thousands of years later.

Now, in a recent new study, researchers have discovered that there is yet another threat. “Supernova aftermath always produce X-rays, but if the supernova shock wave hits the dense surrounding gas, it can produce a particularly large dose of X-rays that arrives months or years after the explosion and can last for decades.”

That is, the threat comes from the shock wave of a supernova hitting the gas dense surrounding the exploded star. The impact can be such that an X-ray dose can be produced and could reach Earth or another similar planet months or years after the explosion and can last for decades: exposure this intense can trigger extinction on the planet, the process could end “with a significant part of the ozone, which is responsible for protecting life from “dangerous” ultraviolet radiation and therefore would have lethal consequences.

Life on Earth, in danger?

The truth is that the researchers who have found this new threat try to reassure the alert. They point out that Earth “is not in danger of such a threat today because there are no possible supernova progenitors within this distance.” However, they do not rule out that this type of X-ray exposure has been experienced in the past.

The Solar System, and therefore the world we live in, are in a safe space” from possible supernova explosions. But other planets in the Milky Way are not. “These high-energy events would effectively reduce the areas within the Milky Way galaxy, known as the Galactic Habitable Zone, where conditions would be conducive to life as we know it,” Chandra read in a statement.