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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.""
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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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.)
I thought it was just that it was the biggest such explosion recorded by humans within the last 400 years.
just before the explosion:
"Damn you, you bloody baboon!"
Come on, give me a break. I've seen some of the science being done on this flare. There are enough cool things without being needlessly sensational, and invoking the Wipe-Out-All-Civilization radius definitely counts as sensational. After all, isn't the nearest magnetar something like 5 kiloparsecs away?
Microsoft delenda est!
I though that the New scientist article on it was a bit more informative.
10 light years is really close... Thats like only 3 times the distance form us to the sun.
Considering that it takes 8 mins for light from the sun to reach Earth, I think your calculations are a bit off.
365 days x 24 hours x 60 mins = 525600 mins/year
525600 mins/year x 10 years = 5256000 mins
5256000 mins / 8 mins = 6.57x10^6 times
Therefore 10 light years is actually 6.57x10^6 times the distance from us to the sun.
QED
Live forever, or die trying.
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!
Did anyone else think that maybe we just saw the end of a Disaster Area Concert from the back row?
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...
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.
Microsoft delenda est!
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.
At least it's not a repost. :D
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How many piano tuners are there in Chicago? This is an example Fermi used to use. Yes, maybe you could go out and measure this, using the "job" field in tax returns, the yellow pages, etc., but you can also get an idea of the number by figuring out how many people live in Chicago. How many of those people on average have pianos? How often do they need tuning? How fast can they be tuned? You have a pretty good idea (or he did anyway) of the answers to those individual questions, you can put an estimate on the number without actually making a direct measurement. Some problems in science can be tackled this way, and it's a type of reasoning scientists ought to be able to use well.
Professor of Astronomy, Author of Spider Star & Star Dragon (Tor)
This is a series of emails that discuss the burst. Interesting posts include the following:
There were a series of small bursts observed before the big one, but no one seems to have realized that they were precursors until after the big one arrived. "During 21 December more than 30 SGR-like bursts were detected by Konus-Wind and Helicon-Coronas-F" satellites.
The burst was detected by the Mars Odyssey spacecraft. "A very preliminary analysis indicates that the arrival time at Odyssey is indeed consistent with an arrival direction from SGR1806-20."
There is also discussion of an Earth-orbiting satellite that did not have a direct view of the flare; however, it picked up a faint echo 7.70 seconds after everyone else saw it. "This value corresponds exactly to burst travelling time from the Wind to the Moon and back to the Coronas-F."
Finally, serendipious observations were made by spacecraft whose primary mission is solar observation. "The SGR was 5 degrees from RHESSI's pointing axis which was directed toward the Sun."
Nothing for 6-digit uids?