Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Fifth Anniversary of a Cosmic Onslaught

Posted by Soulskill on from the blast-from-the-past dept.

The Bad Astronomer writes "Five years ago today (December 27, 2004), a vast wave of high-energy gamma and X-rays washed over the Earth, blinding satellites and partially ionizing the Earth's atmosphere. The culprit was a superflare from the magnetar SGR 1806-20, located 50,000 light years away. The energy released was mind-numbing: in one-fifth of a second, this supercharged magnetic neutron star blasted out as much energy as the Sun does in 250,000 years!"

4 of 162 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Frist Post! by FooAtWFU · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There is a leak in your roof, and it is dripping water into a bucket: drip drip, drip drip. That's the sun. Then someone dumps the bucket of water over your head all at once, only the bucket is the size of an Olympic swimming pool. That's your neutron star.

    --
    The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
  2. Re:Zero warning by Brett+Buck · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Neutrino oscillation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutrino_oscillation proves that they DON'T travel at the speed of light.

  3. Blasted Whom? by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The blast lasted 200ms. During that time, half the Earth was facing away, shielded by not just atmosphere, but the rock of the solid Earth. Which direction relative to the Earth (latitude, longitude) did the blast come in from, and hit directly (except for atmosphere, and a bit of satellite shadow)?

    On a related subject, which direction does our Solar System "point" at? When it's the Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, what angle on our solar orbit are we making with a line directly to the galactic core? What angle that day with the a tangent to our galactic orbit? Where are we looking at, anyway?

    --

    --
    make install -not war

  4. Eta Carinae by AliasMarlowe · · Score: 5, Interesting

    50,000 light years away and did all that? Imagine if it was say only 500 ly. We are kind of lucky that we don't have any flaky stars nearby....or do we?.....(cue scary music).

    Eta Carinae is expected to go supernova real soon (astronomical time scale - could be tomorrow, could be 10^6 years from now). It's less than 8000 ly away which is not very close, but much closer than 50000ly. And when it goes pop, Eta Carinae will be a pretty big one. Its rotation axis does not point towards us, so effects would be mostly limited to satellites and anything in the upper atmosphere.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eta_Carinae

    --
    Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire