“We have the Local Bubble in the interstellar medium. We’re right on its edge,” says Adrian Melott at the University of Kansas. “It’s a giant region about 300 light years long. It’s basically very hot, very low-density gas — nearly all the gas clouds have been swept out of it. The best way to manufacture a bubble like that is a whole bunch of supernovae blows it bigger and bigger, and that seems to fit well with idea of a chain. When we do calculations, they’re based on the idea that one supernova that goes off, and its energy sweeps by Earth, and it’s over.
