Gamma-Ray Burst

Aside from the theoretical conjecture of the Big Bang at the birth of the universe, the most terrifying high-energy explosion observed in the universe to date is undoubtedly a Gamma-Ray Burst.

This is the most violent explosion in the universe. It truly exists, occurs densely in the vast expanse of space, and constantly threatens the existence of life.

This is because the gamma rays it emits are enough to kill everything in their path, releasing a massive amount of energy in a short period, comparable to the total energy released by hundreds of suns over their entire lifetimes.

Even a single photon it emits often has tens of thousands of times the energy of sunlight.

This energy, briefly released by the collapse and explosion of massive stars when their fuel is exhausted, is the enemy of life, the universe's strongest killer.

Gamma-Ray Bursts occur almost daily in the universe, and their direction is random. If a planet with life happens to be in the path of a Gamma-Ray Burst, the life on that celestial body will face utter annihilation. Because they occur so frequently, approximately one in ten million celestial bodies are swept by a Gamma-Ray Burst.

Earth was once a member of the "Gamma-Ray Burst Victim List," suffering mass extinctions. However, it tenaciously survived, and after a long period of desolation, life and civilization were born again.

On April 1, 2017, lovely Earth would welcome the "Gentle Reaper" for the second time.

A neutron star of immense density, billions of light-years away, collided with another neutron star, resulting in an unprecedented release of a terrifying Gamma-Ray Burst.

The explosion lasted only forty-two seconds, but the energy it released evaporated many stars in its path, blasting out of galaxies and traveling through the dark interstellar space for billions of years.

Like a randomly fired "stray bullet from the Gentle Reaper," no one wanted to be hit.

Naturally, life hoped that this unprecedented Gamma-Ray Burst would expend its final energy in interstellar space and never enter another galaxy.

However, fate had other plans. A spiral galaxy happened to be in the trajectory of this "stray bullet," and the super energy poured into this galaxy, tens of thousands of light-years in diameter.

This unfortunate galaxy was the Milky Way, which, after a cleansing five hundred million years ago, was now experiencing its second "lottery win."

Of course, compared to the vastness of the universe, the propagation path of a Gamma-Ray Burst is not very wide. If possible, a Gamma-Ray Burst could sweep through a portion of a galaxy and eventually be swallowed by the supermassive black hole at its center. This would be the best and most common outcome. After all, on the scale of the Milky Way, this level of energy is not significant; the supermassive black hole at the center could absorb it all.

The true annihilation was reserved only for life.

Unfortunately, a galaxy harboring a planet with life happened to be positioned on the propagation path, and the civilization on that planet became the "grand prize" winner.

Furthermore, because Gamma-Ray Bursts travel at the speed of light, the civilization on that life-bearing planet would not realize it had won until the moment of its destruction.

This "lucky winner" was Earth.

A super Gamma-Ray Burst entered at a unique angle. Before it could even evaporate the Sun, it struck Earth first.

This one was not like the event five hundred million years ago; its energy level was unprecedentedly powerful. Although it consumed too much energy during its propagation, it was still enough to render Earth incapable of nurturing life again, leaving it in an extreme environment until its end.

A kill shot. Life on Earth would have no reaction; in the instant it experienced all this, it would instantly cease to exist.

However, nature played a colossal joke on this second. The universe itself is an infinite series of coincidences, always filled with countless unknowns and miracles.

The terrifying Gamma-Ray Burst, at the moment it reached Earth's surface and penetrated the atmosphere, inexplicably vanished.

Not to mention the life on the surface, even the atmosphere itself suffered little damage. That immense energy, which made even the Sun tremble, simply disappeared, as if an invisible space had swallowed it all at that moment.

The first to detect this Gamma-Ray Burst was the Spitzer Space Observatory.

It was in a deep space orbit at the second Lagrange point. When the Gamma-Ray Burst occurred, it was on the opposite side of Earth and was not hit. It was only an hour later that it detected residual anomalous visible light and background radiation in space.

Large amounts of observational data were transmitted to Earth, directly causing panic at NASA.

"Gamma-Ray Burst? Visible light detected in Earth's planetary orbit? This close?"

"Not only that, but the energy level is also extremely high! Based on the residual energy, it surpassed the observation from 1999 by about ten times during propagation!"

"What! God, we're still alive?"

In 1999, Earth observed a distant super Gamma-Ray Burst, with an energy equivalent to the total energy released by the entire Milky Way galaxy in two thousand years.

That was already the largest Gamma-Ray Burst observed in human history, and now they had observed an even larger one, breaking the record.

The energy index was comparable to the total energy released by the entire Milky Way galaxy in twenty thousand years!

A terrifying astronomical figure. Of course, this was the peak value at the point of emission. After billions of years of propagation and attenuation, it was no longer sufficient to destroy Earth's molecular structure upon arrival, but the radiation alone was enough to destroy Earth's ecosystem and turn it into hell.

At this very moment, society on Earth seemed completely unaffected, continuing to operate as usual. There were no space station docking missions during this period, and no personnel casualties in the various space station laboratories. Otherwise, at the time of the Gamma-Ray Burst, anyone on board the space stations in near-Earth orbit, such as Tiangong-2, would have been the first to be hit, with no chance of survival.

This bizarre phenomenon left the staff of various space agencies completely bewildered.

The staff at various astronomical observatories that subsequently observed the residual "afterglow" were all stunned, their faces pale, muttering in utter fear.

"How are we still alive?"

Several Chinese and European aerospace engineers could no longer stand, leaning weakly against nearby objects, their lips trembling.

This was too fortunate, so fortunate it was unscientific and unreasonable!

It could only be explained by coincidence, an unknown coincidence, perhaps so complex and profound that it allowed Earth to escape disaster.

The mere fact of Earth's miraculous survival was enough to occupy aerospace experts for decades, even centuries, of research.

Within hours of the event, a joint research group was established in the global space sector. Experts and engineers from China, Europe, and America shared data, specifically to investigate the "doubtful fact of Earth's survival."

Their first step in the research was to consider whether to deny the fact that a Gamma-Ray Burst had passed through Earth. If scientific evidence could deny this, suggesting that the residual space glow was merely an astronomical illusion, then Earth's survival would be perfectly reasonable.

However, the ironclad data indicated that this could not be any optical illusion, as too much matter in outer space had suffered intense gamma-ray impacts, and many impacted space observation satellites had been directly rendered inoperable.

"Was Earth really on the propagation path? Did it just graze past?"

"No... no, it was a direct hit on Earth... The source direction was towards the North Pole, the path did not pass through the Sun or Jupiter. Look! This is the visible light spectrum of the gamma-ray afterglow, it's too obvious. It entered the ecliptic plane obliquely, meaning it hit Earth! It even reached the atmosphere!"

"Incredible, the Gamma-Ray Burst passed through Earth, and we're completely unharmed?"

"No, no, no, no… it didn't pass through either! Look! The propagation path just stopped at Earth, with no radiation residue on the other side. This means the Gamma-Ray Burst… disappeared when it reached Earth!"

"Disappeared… what does that mean? Absorbed by Earth? Or refracted by the atmosphere?"

"How is that possible! Do you know how much energy it would take to destroy Earth? In terms of yield, only seventy gai tons of TNT!"

Gai is ten thousand jing, or 10^20, a massive unit of measurement.

But this TNT equivalent, this many tons of TNT, wouldn't even be a drop in the bucket compared to the total energy of the Gamma-Ray Burst.

The physicist said, "The energy the sun releases in a single day is equivalent to eighty gai tons of TNT, enough to blow up Earth once! If you multiply that by ten, the energy would be enough to obliterate Earth into dust, with all the debris flying out of the solar system."

"You can imagine how much energy the sun releases over ten billion years."

Another physicist said, "I've calculated that. It's about 1.8 times 10 to the power of 48 joules. Enough to destroy Earth… 10 to the power of 25… times."

"Exactly! And that's just the energy released by the Gamma-Ray Burst in 0.0002 seconds. Now, do you still think Earth is capable of absorbing that much energy? And refraction… even if our atmosphere, through an incomprehensible coincidence, miraculously refracted that energy, where did it go?"

"We only observed the afterglow of the Gamma-Ray Burst's arrival… but there's no trace of its departure… Could all of this be…"

"Divine intervention?"

After that, everyone fell silent.

With their knowledge, they were helpless against this mystery, feeling utterly ignorant.

Although they were overjoyed to be alive, as scientists, they were deeply saddened to find no rational explanation for humanity's good fortune.

The first meeting of the joint research group concluded only with the naming of this Gamma-Ray Burst as the 'Gentle Reaper'.

This day was April 1st. In the cities, it might have been April Fool's Day. But in the space agencies of various countries, the top-tier scholars did not treat it as April Fool's Day, but as Humanity's Lucky Day.

For now, no country planned to make this event public, but it was expected that before long, many civilian organizations would also observe the 'Reaper's' afterglow.

The experts and scholars, filled with countless questions, had no idea that at the very moment the 'Gentle Reaper' arrived and disappeared.

In a small, fourth-tier inland city in China, a young man collapsed to the ground, unconscious.

He was just a passerby on the street, walking spiritedly one moment, and the next, he fell as if struck by something.

Although there were no external injuries, kind bystanders still came forward to check on him.

Upon finding him genuinely unconscious, they quickly called 120 and rushed him to the hospital for emergency treatment.

The entire process was a trivial matter in the bustling city, not even newsworthy.

No one would have thought it would have any profound impact.

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