Death.  It is the greatest fear of all humans (tied at this point with public speaking, spiders, and your crazy ex showing up at your house at 3AM with your 2-year-old child).  You will die one day.  Based on how jaded our society has become, you’ve probably made peace with it, hoping it will be painless, but not really letting it rule your life.

But have you ever thought how it’s all going to end?  Life?  The Universe?  Everything? 

I have.  And my one wish is this:

It had better be AWESOME.

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I love comic books.  Like The Incredible Hulk.  Talk about an awesome fantasy as a kid.

Think about this: you’re wandering around a nuclear test range, and suddenly, a “gamma bomb” goes off.  Instead of dying, you become one of the most powerful creatures to ever exist: a feral green giant; the personification of repressed rage and every nerd’s dream come true — to NEVER BE PICKED ON AGAIN.  But it is never to come true because all you do is push the hurt down inside and read your comics at home while you cry and cry and eventually learn that the world is a bitter and cruel place and the only escape is fiction, or death.

You see, as I grew, I learned things.  Many things.  Such as the fact that gamma bombs don’t exist.

I know.  It’s shocking.  I’ll let you take that in.

But there is good news: Gamma Rays DO exist.  When a supernova explodes, it emits a burst of gamma rays JUST BEFORE it gets sucked into a black hole.

If this all sounds awesome, that’s because it is.

So, imagine the story of the Hulk, but times six billion.  A supernova explodes, bathes the Earth in Gamma Rays, and suddenly, everyone on Earth turns into huge green monstrousities that run around breaking things whenever they get angry, except the couple people that turn Gray and super-smart and fix the world’s problems, until they grow too smart and strong and then impose a fascist state, but it’s ok because it’ll be reminiscent of Plato’s “Democracy.”

Now imagine that story, except replace “the Hulk” with “skeletons” and everything after “everyone on Earth” with “dying, likely in horrific pain.”

Yeah.  Turns out Stan Lee wasn’t all too good at research, because Gamma Rays will fucking kill you and everyone you love.  It’ll be like an atomic bomb exploding all over the earth at once.

Because this right here is some scary shit and may have just knocked you right into the “Denial” stage of grief, let me give you some hope:

While Gamma Ray bursts are relatively common, they have to be aimed JUST right – the star that dies in the supernova has to be at right angles to the Earth, and be right on the verge of explosion.  And there are currently no known stars about to pop that fit that description.

And none of us died from gamma rays.  The End.

(Stop reading now if you really feel like sleeping tonight)

That last paragraph was a lie.  There is a cosmological curiousity called WR104 (which I’m going to call Earthslayer from here on out, because WR104 is so innocuous).  That “WR” in Earthslayer’s scientific name stands for “Wolf-Rayet.”  What that means is this star system is as close to exploding as an exploding star gets before it explodes.

Right now, you’re probably asking, “John, is there any good news? At all?”

And right now, I’m answering, “No.” 

There is merely “meh” news, “ok” news, and “hopeful” news.

The “meh” news: IF THIS HAPPENS, WE WILL NOT SEE IT COMING.  In fact, it’s likely already happened, since Earthslayer is 8,000 light-years away.  Some scientists may see the star go nova, and then we’ll all just die, suddenly.  Which seems like a boon, except we will BURN TO DEATH or BOIL ALIVE IN OUR OWN JUCES.  So, yeah.  “Meh,” at best.

The “ok” news: The chances of this happening anytime soon are unknown.  It could, in fact, be a million years away.  On the other hand it could be tomorrow.

The “hopeful” news: There is a chance that when this star bites the big one, it will not emit gamma rays.  I’m gonna leave that one as is, because you deserve a little hope.  Everyone does.

AWESOME FACTOR: 4 out of 10.  Supernovae, Black Holes, Gamma Rays, Wiping out all life on Earth.  Yeah, that’s pretty awesome, but it’s also simply the end of life on Earth, not the Universe or time itself.  Also, Gamma Ray Bursts happen relatively often in the scheme of things.

LIKELIHOOD: 5 out of 10.  Earthslayer’s out there, and it’s gonna explode sooner rather than later.

SURVIVABILITY: 1 out of 10.  The shockwave will kill everything on Earth, except some lucky fish, bacteria, and dead Cthulhu who lies dreaming.