On Oct. 9, 2022, telescopes in space picked up a jet of high energy photons careening through the cosmos toward Earth, evidence of a supernova exploding 1.9 billion light-years away. Such events are known as gamma ray bursts, and astronomers who have continued studying this one said it was the brightest of all time.
The ozone was partially depleted temporarily, said Pietro Ubertini, an astronomer at the National Institute of Astrophysics in Rome who was involved in discovering the atmospheric event. The effect was detectable for just a few minutes before the ozone repaired itself, so it was nothing serious, Dr. Ubertini said. But had the supernova occurred closer to us, he said, it would be a catastrophe.
Simulations have shown that a gamma ray burst in our Milky Way could wipe out the stratospheric ozone layer for years, long enough to cause widespread extinction. Ozone also exists at lower concentrations higher up in the ionosphere, a part of the atmosphere that stretches from 37 to 310 miles altitude. At those altitudes, a gamma ray burst could have significant effects on ozone levels.
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