Fun With Gamma Rays?

Question

Writing a story and need some tech data. Spisifically, envisioning a large ship mounted weapon that projects gamma rays and need some info on how this might work.

Obviously the radiation would be devistating to living things and electronic but what other effects would occure. Would a concontrated gamma ray have explosive properties like any laser weapon might?

What sort of power output might it need to, say, obliterate a 100,000 ton armored space craft in a single attack.

Also, any ideas regarding the natural shortcommings or difficulties in using such a weapon.

Any thoughts here would be helpful, thanks.

PS: Please excuse my spelling, javascripts are screwed up and I can't spell check.

Answer 1

Well if we're just having fun with gamma rays...the nasty part about gamma rays, and why they're so bad for us, is that it is a form of ionizing radiation, which basically means that its so energetic that it will rip electrons out of their atomic orbits as the gamma rays pass. This, needless to say, is bad for us when it happens to our tissues. It also affects the materials it passes through, which is why shielding for such things is made of very dense materials, lead, etc, because there is far more structure to run into and slow down. i maybe would design a weapon using the high energy 'ripping' away of the electrons from gamma rays, with enough juice i'm sure you could make something disintigrate, or explode, or whatever. As for power output required, i have no clue, but from a scientific standpoint the massive gamma ray bursts that we observe in the universe have been estimate to release around 10^47 joules of energy on average. Basically think of our entire sun converted from mass to energy in a split second and thats the amount of power we're talking...probably not really feasible, but if you're writing sci-fi you could use any number of things, artificial singularities, matter-anti-matter reactions...whatever really. the amount of power is so ridiculous that you'll have to make something up anyway :) hope this helps a little, and i want royalties if it sells :)

Note to everyone: if this planet was hit by a comsic gamma ray-burst from anywhere nearby, we're screwed. At the high energy outputs i'm talking about gamma rays will rip apart matter at near enough proximities, which i think is what our intrepid sci-fi writer wants.

I cite a paper written in 2005 by scientists at the University of Kansas, on mass-extinction events caused by gamma-ray bursts...this is what they said would happen from a high-energy gamma-ray burst 6000 light years away: "A ten-second burst would have stripped the Earth's atmosphere of half of its ozone almost immediately, causing surface-dwelling organisms, including those responsible for planetary photosynthesis, to be exposed to high levels of ultraviolet radiation"

ten seconds, from 6000 light years away, we're done. yes before you say it i realize that it only talks about ripping off half of the ozone layer, but thats pretty devatating for that duration and that distance.

now imagine having that much energy fired at you in the form of a weapon at a distance of 1000 kilometers...hell i dont know WHAT that would really do.

Answer 2

Gamma rays by themselves are not that devastating because they tend to go through things instead of impacting on the surface. A concentrated beam will disrupt all living cells and could easily kill somebody.
I think that your spacecraft will not change very much but all the life and electronics on board will be stopped. Chances are that the dead crew won't rot much either because all the bacteria on board would be dead too and won't be able to decay the bodies. So you have a ghost ship frozen in time rather than a blown up ship.

Answer 3

Well u might have problems focusing your weapon as Gama rays do not focus by magnets and charge wise nothing affects them. U could wipe out your self as well as the enemy. It doesn't blow things up just kills everything. The neutron bomb is similar.