Astronomers Find the Safest Place to Live in the Milky Way

Jakarta, CNN Indonesia –

The team of Italian astronomers claims to have found the safest place to live in Bima sakti. The discovery was made after studying the location of a powerful cosmic explosion that may have killed life.

Like a supernova explosion and gamma rays, cosmic explosions spew out high-energy particles, as well as radiation that can damage DNA and kill life. With that logic, astronomers think that areas that are more welcoming to life are areas where explosions are less frequent.

“The powerful cosmic explosion cannot be ignored for the existence of life in our galaxy throughout its cosmic history. This event has played a role in endangering life in large parts of the Milky Way,” said the study’s lead author from the University of Insubria, Riccardo Spinelli, citing Live Science.

In addition to finding the deadliest hotspots, astronomers have also identified the safest places in the history of galaxies that are predicted to have existed 11 billion years ago. The results show that Earth, where humans currently live, is on the edge of the galaxy.

In the youth of the Milky Way, the edge of the galaxy was the opposite.

In research published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics, many factors make planets habitable. For example, a planet must be in the Goldilocks zone, where the heat and activity of the parent star is neither too much nor too little.

In addition to these local conditions, life must also combat harmful radiation coming from interstellar space. Fierce cosmic events, such as supernovae and gamma-ray bursts, also emit dangerous high-energy particles at speeds approaching the speed of light.

Not only can they kill all living things, but the particles of that phenomenon can disarm the entire planet’s atmosphere. After such an event, scientists believe that planets orbiting nearby star systems will be wiped out of life.

“For a planet very close to a star explosion, it makes sense that there is complete sterilization. In those distant places, mass extinctions are more likely to occur,” Spinelli said.