Solar Flare Interference From 45k Lightyears Away

Wan2Be writes "Nasa has a story about a solar flare on Aug. 27 that affected our planet with radio bounces and blackouts - but it wasn't from old Sol, it was from SGR 1900+14, a neutron star about 45,000 light years away. "

Comments

Cajun Blackened Astronaut

[Detritus]

What sort of radiation dose would an astronaut receive if he was located outside the Van Allen Belt?

Solar flares were a serious concern to the Apollo astronauts, who were at risk while traveling to the Moon.

Re:Just goes to show you.

[mskfisher]

You've got that right.
If you're impressed by how these "magnetars" can affect us, check out gamma-ray bursters.

From http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/mnr/st /std086:

The integrated flux of the strongest burst, GB790305, was 10^-4 ergs/cm^2 (the time structure of this pulse was consistent with a
rotating or precessing neutron star; the period is about 8 seconds).
A lethal dose to unshielded astronauts would be about 4 x 10^6 ergs/cm^2, so anyone 200,000 closer to the burster than we were had
better have good shielding.

...

If the burster was at 5 billion light years (say), the lethal radius for unshielded astronauts would be around 25,000 light years. I hope one doesn't go off in our galaxy soon.

We might get beat up real good by one of those bad boys - the Earth could get cooked if one happened right outside our neighborhood.
Ah well, what's life without a little excitement? :)