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Huge Star Quake Rocks Milky Way
SJrX writes "The BBC is reporting that scientists have detected "the biggest explosion observed by humans within [the past 400 years]". The explosion luckily occured about 50,000 light years away form us, on the far side of the Milky Way, as the article goes on to say that had the explosion been within 10 light years of us, it "would possibly have triggered a mass extinction.""
The explosion luckily occured about 50,000 light years away form us, on the far side of the Milky Way, as the article goes on to say that had the explosion been within 10 light years of us, it "would possibly have triggered a mass extinction."
Yeah... that would have been a real loss.
(Yes folks, I'm just that bitter.)
What about the existance of Sinistars?
just before the explosion:
"Damn you, you bloody baboon!"
Yeah, I saw it happen. Like there was this blinding flash. It was just fucking brilliant. Better living through astronomy, that's what I say. It's better than sex, drugs, and bungy jumpin'. Fuckin' far out.
...what happened to the data on all my magnetic media?
You should be a numerologist. You know, those people who ask you when you were born, and you answer "uuh... 4th of january, 1972", and they say "well, if you add 72 and 19, that makes 91 and you add 4 and 1, that makes five, and five plus 9 plus one gives you 96, modulus three, that's THREE!!!
THE HOLY TRINITY!!!
You are the chosen one, my son.
**ding**
Times up, that'll be $29.99 dear, my assistant will take your fee out front no cheques, only cash please. You can ask her for a receipt too. Thank you, come again!
Thanks goodness for Atmosphere. It has protected us once again!
ps. It happened in August 1998. Back then it was SGR1900+14. Apparently a weaker event, but it knocked our socks off back then.
Did anyone else think that maybe we just saw the end of a Disaster Area Concert from the back row?
From the article
One calculation has the giant flare on SGR 1806-20 unleashing about 10,000 trillion trillion trillion watts.
Very impressive but as reading those consecutive huge "units", I just had to:
Dr Evil: I'll hold the world ransom for.....
1 Hundread, Billion, Trillion TRiLLion TRILLION Dollars! *pinky*
A still hopefull Star Wars fan.
had the explosion been within 10 light years of us, it "would possibly have triggered a mass extinction."
Dang! Extinction has an upside -- it would be nice to start over and ditch the red-state, blue-state stuff and perhaps come out better for starting anew. Maybe the next batch of primordial ooze will grow up smarter than us, and perhaps along the way find something less verbose than XML in the process!
...I regret to inform you that in order to make room for the hyperspace express route...
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
"After all, isn't the nearest magnetar something like 5 kiloparsecs away?"
Pssh. The Millineum Falcon could reach that in no time!
"Derp de derp."
You are slightly off in your estimate. Originally, astronomical events were measured in years. Then Light Years were invented, which had a third less calories than our regular years. So the energy in a Light Year is one third less than a full-bodied year.
According to TFA this shit happened 50000 years ago. Is this some kind of slashdot record, posting news that mattered 50K years ago?
I'm from the Bush administration. Put that in terms of burning Libraries of Congress.
Infuriate left and right
Trigger a mass extinction? Wouldn't that be redundant?
Not only would it kill everyone and everything, but do it many times. A regular extinction is bad enough, but the following redundant extinctions after the fact grow tiresome. We're dead, you can stop now!
Noooooooooooo! ET was killed in mass extinction. Now the ugly finger glowing midget is out of show-biz. *cries*
Fallout 3 will suck.
This happened 50,000 years ago and it is just now being posted to Slashdot? :)
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
as if millions of stars suddenly blinked out in terror and were suddenly silenced.
At least it's not a repost. :D
This space intentionally left blank
People of SGR 1806-20, your attention please. This is Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz of the Galactic Hyperspace Planning Council.
Plans for development if the outlying regions of the galaxy require the building of a hyperspatial express route through your star system, and regrettably your star is scheduled for demolition.
The process will take slightly less that two of your SGR 1806-20 minutes. Thank you.
And it still would be George Bush's fault, right?
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
From the article:
This is a once-in-a-lifetime event
I bet the aliens who lived less than 10 light-years from there couldn't possibly deny what you just said.
"It's Praxis, sir. It's a klingon moon."
At an estimated cost of 3 cents per kilowatt/hour, that would put the total cost at $8.3 billion trillion trillion, which is more than the Galactic Lending Limit.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Hell, to cruise for mod points you wouldn't even have to be remotely accurate.
Your courageous and selfless spelling corrections have made me a better person.
Just under 417 Kessel runs.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
George W. Bush is now working with SETI to negotiate the disarmament of SGR 1806-20's WME's (Weapons of Mass Extinction).
If you like what I've said here, and want to read more, go to http://www.krillrblog.com
You were surprised that you observed a heavenly body while at an observatory?
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
That's the first time on slashdot I've actually seen a decent analogy. Wow. Have a biscuit!
I guess I've observed there too many times for such a joke to be funny.
Especially when there's so many better jokes. Like, did you ever come out in the winter to see some guy with his tongue stuck to the sign, going "I thought they were inthructionth!"
You also don't mention what the road to Lick is paved with. Somehow I doubt it's good intentions.