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Huge Star Quake Rocks Milky Way

Posted by Zonk on from the hold-on-sol! dept.

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.""

4 of 548 comments (clear)

  1. Equation constraints by BWJones · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Of course the existence of magnetars will place constraints on estimations of life on other planets like the Drake equation, and it might be useful to map out these sources of potential periodic radiation bursts to limit/make more efficient radio/laser surveys of the sky.

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  2. Re:Pffft... by salvorHardin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I thought it was just that it was the biggest such explosion recorded by humans within the last 400 years.

  3. No, it won't by Einer2 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    From what I know, magnetars radiate most of their energy on an extremely short timescale, of order tens of thousands of years or so. Considering how rare they are, the number of stars that are irradiated by SGR flares must be pretty small, and so any additional term in the Drake equation would be very, very close to unity.

    If anyone wants to cruise for mod points, you could do an order-of-magnitude estimate of the fraction of irradiated stars using the age and total volume of the Milky Way, the mean time between SGR flares of this magnitude (call it a decade to a century), and the radius of OMG-We're-All-Gonna-Die that was specified in the article.

    Of course, the supernova explosion that led to a magnetar's formation would would have already done quite a bit of damage to the surrounding area, so they aren't likely to have any meaningful impact on any planetary systems around them anyway.

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    1. Re:No, it won't by Esion+Modnar · · Score: 4, Insightful
      the supernova explosion that led to a magnetar's formation would would have already done quite a bit of damage to the surrounding area

      Put another way, it would be like worrying about being deafened by the shock wave of a nuclear bomb going off a mile away.

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