This is a high-quality map of Derinkuyu, an ancient underground city discovered in Turkey. Extending 60 meters (200 feet) below the surface, it could shelter up to 20,000 people. The city was uncovered in 1963, when a local resident found a mysterious room hidden behind a wall in his home.
We need to discuss gamma-ray bursts. The most insane things in the universe.
When the biggest stars die, their core collapses to form a black hole. At the moment the black hole is born, a jet of high-energy radiation can shoot out like a laser, called a gamma-ray burst.
Just how powerful is a gamma-ray burst? I’ll tell you in four steps:
1) TSAR BOMBA: In 1961, the Soviet Union blew up the biggest bomb in human history in a test explosion—the Tsar Bomba. It exploded with the equivalent force of 50 megatons of TNT—more than 3,000 times the explosive force of the Hiroshima bomb.
2) SUN: The sun releases the equivalent of 91 quadrillion tons of TNT—more than a billion Tsar Bombas—every second.
3) SUPERNOVA: Giant stars die in the ultimate blaze of glory: the supernova. The biggest supernovae explode with the equivalent of 40 decillion (4 x 10^34) tons of TNT. That’s more than the amount of energy released by the sun in its entire 10-billion-year lifetime.
4) GAMMA-RAY BURST: The largest gamma-ray burst ever detected was observed in October of 2022. In a span of about ten minutes, it released the equivalent energy of 10,000 supernova—more than 10,000 times the energy the sun will release in its lifetime. In ten minutes.
Don’t fuck with gamma-ray bursts.