Exploding Stars: Is Earth at Risk?

[mickw]

When stars go pop, a murderous torrent of energy is released. Life on Earth may have been partly extinguished by just such a violent outburst, but there's little hard evidence yet to justify such a claim. A new study plans to fill in the forensic details.

"We are trying to get a better estimate of how dangerous a particular event will be," says Brian Thomas of Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas.

Thomas and his colleagues will be studying the wide-range of astrophysical phenomena that could fling high energy radiation across interstellar space to Earth's doorstep [as occured in a colossal blast detected in 2004]. The team also will radiate different types of phytoplankton to understand how life would be affected by a stellar blast, since life around the globe is highly dependent on these microscopic plants.

The danger from stellar explosions has been considered before, but this will be the first comprehensive study. "We are building on previous work by broadening it to a wide range of astrophysical events and by making the biological modeling more precise," Thomas says. The project is part of NASA's Exobiology and Evolutionary Biology Program. 

More:   http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/090618-exploding-star-earth.html

*As if Mars crashing into Earth wasn't enough to worry about*