Earth hit by gamma rays from exploding star 2 billion lightyears away

Earth was hit by a huge burst of gamma rays originating from a star nearly 2 billion lightyears away, according to the European Space Agency.

The gamma ray burst caused a disturbance in Earth's ionosphere and was detected by mutliple high-energy satellites in Earth orbit, including the European Integral mission .

The detections occurred at 14:21 BST / 15:21 CEST on 9 October 2022.

Disturbances like this can be caused by high energy activity from the Sun, but this time the source was an exploding star.

Astronomers say analysing the effects of the gamma ray blast could reveal information about mass extinction events throughout Earth's history.

Gamma-ray bursts are thought to be caused by exploding stars - supernovae - or the collision of neutron stars .

The International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (Integral) was launched in 2002 with the aim of detecting gamma-ray bursts.