Fifth Anniversary of a Cosmic Onslaught

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Fifth Anniversary of a Cosmic Onslaught

Posted by Soulskill on Sunday December 27, 2009 @06:31AM 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!"

162 comments

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

Frist Post! by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-27 06:40 · Score: -1

Also, does anyone know what happened to the Northern/Southern lights due to this?
1. Re:Frist Post! by Kagura · 2009-12-27 06:45 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  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!"
  There's no way for me to get my head around these numbers to "truly" feel it. What methods can you use to visualize such extreme numbers?
2. Re:Frist Post! by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-27 06:48 · Score: 0
  
  I think that was covered with the breathless "partially ionizing the Earth's atmosphere." I sure hope the van allen belt doesn't catch on fire.
  The article was interesting and full of neat facts, but it was spun like those overly apocalyptic science hype shows on cable.
  The event was super by our relatively short historical perspective, but how many times must something like this have happened during our evolution. But facts like this might dumb down the impact with the masses.
3. Re:Frist Post! by Mitchell314 · 2009-12-27 06:50 · Score: 1
  
  Without mind-altering substances? Well, go to a very dark, open place at night and look at the sky for a little while. Then imagine all those little stars as bright as the sun. Then imagine all that compressed to one point. That should sort of help.
  
  --
  I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
4. Re:Frist Post! by FooAtWFU · 2009-12-27 06:52 · 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.
5. Re:Frist Post! by wizardforce · 2009-12-27 07:04 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Assuming that we are working with the standard burning library of congress as the measuring unit, we can define the energy release in those terms:
  1 Burning Library of Conress (BLOC)
  4kcal/g
  20TB data
  1MB/novel
  1 novel = 200g
  4,000 metric tons
  16 billion kcal
  
  Solar output ~~ 10^22 kcal/second
  250,000 years = 8*10^12 seconds
  
  energy of event: 8*10^35 kcal
  energy of event/BLOC ~~ 5*10^25 burning libraries of congress
  1 billion BLOC/second for 1.7 billion years
  
  --
  Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
6. Re:Frist Post! by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-27 07:08 · Score: 0
  
  That's 40,000,000,000,000 times the power of the sun. It's about the same ratio as the sun's energy output compared to the electricity consumption of the whole earth.
7. Re:Frist Post! by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-27 07:10 · Score: 1, Informative
  
  8*10^34 not 8*10^35 however, the calculation is still largely correct as 10^35 was a typing error.
8. Re:Frist Post! by shentino · 2009-12-27 07:15 · Score: 1
  
  The sun's a sticky note, the neutron star's an LOC.
9. Re:Frist Post! by Neuroelectronic · 2009-12-27 07:24 · Score: 0
  
  Uhm... yeah, that's not really helping... not even a little bit.
10. Re:Frist Post! by Teun · 2009-12-27 07:36 · Score: 1
  
  I prefer the SI unit of VW Beetle.
  
  --
  "The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
11. Re:Frist Post! by Viadd · 2009-12-27 07:36 · Score: 1
  
  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!"
  There's no way for me to get my head around these numbers to "truly" feel it. What methods can you use to visualize such extreme numbers?
  A fifth of a second is about the time it takes to blink. It's about 12 frames of a 720P HD video signal.
12. Re:Frist Post! by Chris+Mattern · 2009-12-27 07:42 · Score: 1
  
  Nope, not enough. Assuming the drop of water is 0.1 cm^3, your "bucket" would need to be the size of *two thousand* Olympic swimming pools to get approximately the same ratio.
13. Re:Frist Post! by Dunbal · 2009-12-27 07:45 · Score: 1
  
  A fifth of a second is about the time it takes to blink. It's about 12 frames of a 720P HD video signal.
  Or, a fifth of a second is also the built-in physiological delay between the beating of your heart's atria and it's ventricles. 0.2 seconds is the norm. lub dub, lub dub, lub dub.......
  
  --
  Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
14. Re:Frist Post! by Chris+Mattern · 2009-12-27 07:49 · Score: 1
  
  I'm sorry, I used the wrong set of dimensions off the web site I used to get the dimensions of an Olympic-size swimming pools. The correct answer should be two hundred and fifty Olympic swimming pools.
15. Re:Frist Post! by SEWilco · 2009-12-27 07:51 · Score: 1
  
  This is why we need powers of 6 for moderation. Sometimes 5 is simply insufficient.
16. Re:Frist Post! by Tablizer · 2009-12-27 07:52 · Score: 1
  
  The galactic team must have won big for the coach to get the Gatorade Bucket like that.
  
  --
  Table-ized A.I.
17. Re:Frist Post! by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-27 07:54 · Score: -1, Offtopic
  
  According to Janet Napolitano, "the system worked". The system she is referring to is the one that let a muslim extremist (in the words of his father, who reported him to the FBI) board a plane with no passport but an explosive device. The system is the one which put him on a terrorist watch list but not a no-fly list. The system is one where the only thing that prevented 300 dead passengers was an ignitor that didn't work. And if the plane had blown up, what's the chance it would have been correctly identified as a terrorist attack? The system is fucking broken. Good luck to anyone planning on flying in the next few months.
18. Re:Frist Post! by FooAtWFU · 2009-12-27 07:58 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  Assuming the drop of water is 0.1 cm^3, your "bucket" would need to be the size of *two thousand* Olympic swimming pools to get approximately the same ratio.
  What are you talking about? You assume the size of a drop of water but neglected to even mention the rate at which it accumulates. Wikipedia places the Olympic-size swimming pool at 2,500,000 L. To fill that in 25 years (25 * 365 * 86400 = 788,400,000 seconds) is about 3.17 mL/sec. That doesn't seem too far off from the roof-leak I had about 2 weeks ago (through some of the flashing around the bathroom's vent) considering the gross approximations that we're working with here. If your roof-leak is 2000 times worse than sure, two thousand Olympic swimming pools. I hope you get it fixed sometimes in the next 25 years, though; it would be a pity to finally pay off that mortgage and then have the house collapse the next moment.
  
  --
  The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
19. Re:Frist Post! by Tablizer · 2009-12-27 07:59 · Score: 1
  
  does anyone know what happened to the Northern/Southern lights due to this?
  They called into work sick.
  
  --
  Table-ized A.I.
20. Re:Frist Post! by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-27 08:01 · Score: 0
  
  Nope, not enough. Assuming the drop of water is 0.1 cm^3, your "bucket" would need to be the size of *two thousand* Olympic swimming pools to get approximately the same ratio.
  How many Libraries of Congress would that be?
21. Re:Frist Post! by w0mprat · 2009-12-27 08:10 · Score: 1
  
  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!"
  There's no way for me to get my head around these numbers to "truly" feel it. What methods can you use to visualize such extreme numbers?
  "I don't want to be human! I want to see gamma rays! I want to hear X-rays! And I want to - I want to smell dark matter! Do you see the absurdity of what I am? I can't even express these things properly because I have to - I have to conceptualize complex ideas in this stupid limiting spoken language! But I know I want to reach out with something other than these prehensile paws! And feel the wind of a supernova flowing over me! I'm a machine! And I can know much more! I can experience so much more. But I'm trapped in this absurd body! And why? Because my five creators thought that God wanted it that way! "
  
  --
  After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
22. Re:Frist Post! by Arancaytar · 2009-12-27 08:12 · Score: 1
  
  That's the energy released from the combustion of seven bazillion Libraries of Congress.
23. Re:Frist Post! by jandoedel · 2009-12-27 08:19 · Score: 0, Redundant
  
  no, it should actually go up to 11
24. Re:Frist Post! by jthill · 2009-12-27 08:26 · Score: 1
  
  Don't follow the link until you've got a good mental image, k?
  Go here and turn off absolutely every light, every appliance, everything.
  Now, turn on just one nice bright lightbulb.
  That's the sun.
  
  --
  As always, all IMO. Insert "I think" everywhere grammatically possible.
25. Re:Frist Post! by Mitchell314 · 2009-12-27 08:30 · Score: 1
  
  Okay, so that's a minus for drugs.
  
  --
  I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
26. Re:Frist Post! by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-27 08:49 · Score: 0
  
  lub dup, not lub dub
27. Re:Frist Post! by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-27 09:03 · Score: 0
  
  I think that should be more like:
  The Sun is a sheet of notebook paper with the a grocery list on it.
  The neutron star is the entire LoC on a single post-it.
28. Re:Frist Post! by wizardforce · 2009-12-27 09:24 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Technically the error occured at the step that calculates the solar output. The Sun puts out 1400W/m^2 electromagnetic radiation at Earth's orbital distance of ~150 million km. The total output is equal to the surface area of the orbit (4*pi*r^2) which is 4*(3.14)*(1.5*10^11)^2 = 4*10^26 W for which 1 kcal/sec = 4180 W which means ~10^23 kcal/sec energy is released. Doin the math leads to 10^35 being the correct answer leaving the remainder of the math quite correct.
  
  --
  Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
29. Re:Frist Post! by darthwader · 2009-12-27 09:58 · Score: 1
  
  OK, to put it in Slashdot standard units, look at this picture:
  http://arweb.sdsu.edu/es/virtualtour/childrens_ctr.html
  Now imagine this one joining the game:
  http://www.flickr.com/photos/22158290@N04/2139767266/
  That's the kind of scale we're talking about.
  (Note, the photos were chosen for amusement, not accuracy. They are intended to show "big" and "small", not specific ratios.)
  
  --
  I hate it when I make a joke and I get modded "+5 insightful". Mod the stupid comments "funny", not "insightful", pleas
30. Re:Frist Post! by Dunbal · 2009-12-27 10:32 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  I guess it depends which medical school you studied at, and which text books you read.
  However Google returns 65,300 hits for lub dup, and 11,200,000 hits for lub dub. So if google is any indication, I am "right" and you are "wrong"...
  
  --
  Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
31. Re:Frist Post! by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-27 12:01 · Score: 1, Funny
  
  "What methods can you use to visualize such extreme numbers?"
  According to the article you need a monitor a thousand feet tall.
32. Re:Frist Post! by dougmc · 2009-12-27 12:05 · Score: 1
  
  A drop of water is a lot smaller than 0.1 cm^3. This is hardly a scientific study, but they measured 0.025 g, which works out to about 0.025 cm^3 -- 8 times smaller.
  Of course, drops come in lots of different sizes, but I'm guessing that one was on the large side. At some point the drop will get too large for surface tension to properly hold it together and it breaks up -- (assuming it's falling in gravity, anyways.)
33. Re:Frist Post! by Artifakt · 2009-12-27 14:41 · Score: 1
  
  Sounds like you need it in Smoots!
  
  --
  Who is John Cabal?
34. Re:Frist Post! by laejoh · 2009-12-27 21:08 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  It's Bouquet!
35. Re:Frist Post! by tjstork · 2009-12-27 23:50 · Score: 1
  
  The purpose of the economy is to produce what is needed not to guarantee the buggy whip manufacturer a job.
  No, the purpose of the economy is to keep the people civilized through the production of goods, rather than the destruction of rivals. Necessity is often an illusion.
  A buggy whip would be more useful than say, all magazines currently being printed, because I could at least beat horses and people with it.
  
  --
  This is my sig.
36. Re:Frist Post! by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-28 00:21 · Score: 0
  
  I still prefer car analogies
37. Re:Frist Post! by vegiVamp · 2009-12-28 01:17 · Score: 1
  
  How many libraries of congress is that ?
  
  --
  What a depressingly stupid machine.
38. Re:Frist Post! by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-28 01:20 · Score: -1, Troll
  
  You don't get out much, right?
39. Re:Frist Post! by Yamata+no+Orochi · 2009-12-28 02:53 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Meme regurgitation is really only ever funny if you use them correctly.
40. Re:Frist Post! by Glock27 · 2009-12-28 03:19 · Score: 1
  
  That 250,000 times one year of solar output number wasn't very meaningful, since the star released all the energy in 1/5 of a second.
  So, we should look at the actual ratio. There are 31,557,600 seconds in an average year (365.25 days). Five times that (to account for 1/5 seconds) is 157,788,000. That number, times 250,000 is 39,447,000,000,000.
  So, for that 1/5 of a second, the neutron star put out about 39.5 trillion times as much energy as the Sun. Since the Sun puts out about the energy of 100 billion H-bombs per second, well that's a LOT of energy. Some might call this a "superflare", I'd call it one heck of a big explosion! Note that the energy intensity was much higher than for a supernova!
  
  --
  Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
  Score: -1 100% Flamebait
41. Re:Frist Post! by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-01 01:31 · Score: 0
  
  You mean like Thomas Jerome Newton, who can see X-rays?
Five year old news? by syousef · 2009-12-27 06:41 · Score: 1

I guess slashdot's servers must by 5 light years away huh?

--
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
1. Re:Five year old news? by john83 · 2009-12-27 07:37 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Someone here has to submit the story to the slashdot servers. Assuming it's accepted immediately, as the standard of editing suggests, someone who sent a page request for the frontpage just after the submission would see the story when the frontpage got back to him. His request for the story then has to be propagated to the server, which has to reply. This means that the server is not more than 1.25 light years away from Earth. Clearly, you must be new here.
  
  --
  Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
2. Re:Five year old news? by peragrin · 2009-12-27 08:27 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Oddly enough that explains all the dupes one sees on slashdot quite well. They are being uploaded from various star systems, and teh editors don't see the final page until after they have already clicked on submit.
  
  --
  i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
3. Re:Five year old news? by mortonda · 2009-12-27 11:13 · Score: 1
  
  You, sir, are a geek. Well, then... carry on!
4. Re:Five year old news? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-27 15:03 · Score: 0
  
  You're forgetting that an HTTP request generally takes more than one round trip.
5. Re:Five year old news? by Idiomatick · 2009-12-27 19:02 · Score: 1
  
  The news is actually 50,005years old gawd.. RTFS
6. Re:Five year old news? by barocco · 2009-12-28 05:03 · Score: 1
  
  Not really. He's at least 2.5 years old by the time you replied.
Zero warning by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-27 06:42 · Score: 0

Gamma rays travel at the speed of light, so there is no possible warning should something like this happen closer to us. When you see it, it's already there. It could all be over any minu
1. Re:Zero warning by Kagura · 2009-12-27 06:48 · Score: 1
  
  Gamma rays travel at the speed of light, so there is no possible warning should something like this happen closer to us. When you see it, it's already there. It could all be over any minu
  Neutrinos also travel at the speed of light. Don't believe me? Well, why is it so hard to prove they don't?
2. Re:Zero warning by Mitchell314 · 2009-12-27 06:51 · Score: 0, Redundant
  
  No, some places on earth have an advantage. They're a little farther awa
  
  --
  I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
3. Re:Zero warning by Brett+Buck · 2009-12-27 07:01 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Neutrino oscillation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutrino_oscillation proves that they DON'T travel at the speed of light.
4. Re:Zero warning by Tablizer · 2009-12-27 07:22 · Score: 1
  
  If they are slower than the gamma and xrays, they won't be of much use in forecasting anyhow.
  
  --
  Table-ized A.I.
5. Re:Zero warning by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-27 07:30 · Score: 0
  
  Science isn't about proving something doesn't happen, it's about proving something empirically happens.
  Once you prove it one way or the other, it's science... otherwise, it's religion.
6. Re:Zero warning by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-27 07:31 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  Neutrinos are slightly slower than gamma and xrays in vacuum, but they're way faster when traversing an exploding star or such so they kinda get a headstart.
7. Re:Zero warning by Dunbal · 2009-12-27 07:41 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  Science isn't about proving something doesn't happen, it's about proving something empirically happens.
  So there's no scientific value in saying, for example, that 0% of lab rats survive being placed in 0 degree salt water for 2+ hours then? How about for 90 minutes? What about 45 minutes? When exactly DO they survive?
  Of course science can prove negatives. It doesn't matter if you're demonstrating how something works, or CLEARLY demonstrating how it DOESN'T work (which usually leads to a rethink and experimental redesign to find an alternative hypothesis). Science is concerned with REPRODUCIBLE RESULTS. A hypothesis that is thrown out still has value - it prevents someone else from going down that path. If you think in absolutes, you are more likely than not to be suffering from distortions and perhaps "religion".
  
  --
  Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
8. Re:Zero warning by sznupi · 2009-12-27 08:13 · Score: 1
  
  What you're thinking about is still proving that something DOES happen - demise of rats in your example. Or failure of that particular experiment.
  
  --
  One that hath name thou can not otter
9. Re:Zero warning by Kagura · 2009-12-27 09:20 · Score: 1
  
  Neutrino oscillation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutrino_oscillation proves that they DON'T travel at the speed of light.
  The quote from the first line of the page you linked reads thusly: Neutrino oscillation is of theoretical and experimental interest since observation of the phenomenon implies that the neutrino has a non-zero mass, which is not part of the original Standard Model of particle physics.
  
  It doesn't sound like anything is proven, or else it would be "case closed". The jury is still out on this one (although contrary to my posts, I believe the neutrino to be massive--just as you believe.)
10. Re:Zero warning by dsanfte · 2009-12-27 09:52 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  You're misunderstanding what a negative argument is.
  Go try to test this hypothesis: "No rat can survive 2+ hours in 0degree salt water, ever."
  You can test it all you like, with a million rats if you so desire. But you can never confirm it, even if you test a million of them. There might be some rat genotype out there capable of surviving, and you can't prove there isn't. That's trying to prove a negative.
  In your example, you have proven that some average survival time of your rats is 2.5hrs. That's a positive.
  
  --
  occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
11. Re:Zero warning by Tyler+Durden · 2009-12-27 09:54 · Score: 1
  
  Errrr... the line you quote from the page does nothing to cast doubt on the accepted mass-having, non-light speed-traveling nature of the neutrino. I remember reading that they discovered neutrinos had mass years ago, and I haven't heard from any scientific publication claiming otherwise since.
  In the sense that nothing can be proven in science, yes, the case is not closed. But in the usual usage of the phrase the case is closed, nailed shut and buried six feet under the ground.
  
  --
  Happy people make bad consumers.
12. Re:Zero warning by radtea · 2009-12-27 10:01 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  It doesn't sound like anything is proven, or else it would be "case closed".
  Wikipedia is not authoritative. Neutrinos have been known to have mass for over five years now, and the physics community is now focused on refining the parameters that characterize massive neutrinos.
  Although we know that neutrinos have mass, we don't know what the mass is because our current experiments are only sensitive to the square of the mass difference between different types of neutrino. However, we do know that all types of neutrino have mass, although the most plausible values are less than a millionth of the electron mass, making it tricky to detect by time-of-flight measurements because any detectable neutrino is going to be ultra-relativistic, travelling so close to the speed of light as to be indistinguishable from a massless particle under almost all circumstances, which is why it was so difficult to prove they do have mass.
  
  --
  Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
13. Re:Zero warning by rrohbeck · 2009-12-27 10:09 · Score: 1
  
  If neutrinos traveled at the speed of light, they wouldn't have time (literally) to oscillate.
  This is independent of rest mass.
  However, if they travel at less than c, they have to have rest mass or their energy and momentum would be zero.
  
  --
  thegodmovie.com - watch it
14. Re:Zero warning by Urkki · 2009-12-27 11:32 · Score: 1
  
  You're misunderstanding what a negative argument is.
  Go try to test this hypothesis: "No rat can survive 2+ hours in 0degree salt water, ever."
  You can test it all you like, with a million rats if you so desire. But you can never confirm it, even if you test a million of them. There might be some rat genotype out there capable of surviving, and you can't prove there isn't. That's trying to prove a negative.
  Sure you can prove that kind of negative buy turning it into positive. You can perhaps (if it is true, though in this particular case I very much doubt it) prove that some essential moleculer or cellular structure in rats body will not survive that environment for that long, ever. Just increasing the temperature of the environment by a few hundred degrees would probably allow proving that no rat will survive there 2+ hours, ever, for any sensible definition of "rat", "survive" and "ever".
15. Re:Zero warning by Kagura · 2009-12-27 12:04 · Score: 1
  
  Why? Light can change frequency during its flight, and that travels at c. Neutrinos take a certain amount of time to travel from point A to point B in our perspective.
16. Re:Zero warning by Kagura · 2009-12-27 12:06 · Score: 1
  
  Thanks for your post. I like it a lot. I always trusted massive neutrinos to be true, but I never knew about the bounds on their masses the way you put it. Great post!
17. Re:Zero warning by TapeCutter · 2009-12-27 13:25 · Score: 1
  
  Sorry but you are conflating proof with observation and extrapolation. Your prediction that no rat can survive is based on very strong evidence but it's not proof. Nature does not have to obey logic, you cannot under any circumstances predict the future with 100% certainty. Proof is found in axiomatic systems such as maths, it is not found in science.
  
  Of course imperfect does not mean useless.
  
  --
  And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
18. Re:Zero warning by lachlan76 · 2009-12-27 14:08 · Score: 1
  
  Light cannot change frequency during its flight; in order to do so, it must be absorbed and re-emitted.
19. Re:Zero warning by rrohbeck · 2009-12-27 14:21 · Score: 0
  
  No time passes for a particle that moves at c. A photon that was emitted shortly after the Big Bang experiences 0 time passing until it is received here. That's a direct consequence of Special Relativity. So, it can not change.
  Light doesn't change frequency during its flight. Only if you look at it from a different rest frame you see a different momentum/energy; that's the relativistic Doppler effect, the source of red shift. If you're in the same rest frame as the one where the photon was emitted, it will never change.
  
  --
  thegodmovie.com - watch it
20. Re:Zero warning by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-27 14:32 · Score: 0
  
  You actually CAN prove negative statements . it is called INDUCTION. look it up ,
  You can also "prove" negative statements to high degrees of confidence using this other thing called STATISTICS . look it up ,
21. Re:Zero warning by hughperkins · 2009-12-27 14:33 · Score: 1
  
  This seems dangerously close to issues with Wittgenstein's thoughts on categorization, or more explicitly: let's say you determine that the liver cannot for some reason survive more than 60 minutes of being less than 35 degrees celsius, but then what next?
  - what if you transplant the liver with an artificial liver? Does the rat still contain the essential characteristics of 'rattiness'?
  - what if the rat is spectactularly fat, and so it takes longer for the liver to go below that temperature? Does that mean the rat is no longer a rat?
  - or long fur?
  - etc ...
  A generally accepted way to 'prove' negative hypotheses is to prove them at a specific statistical certainty level, eg 99% or 99.9%. This has obvious flaws, but it's generally useful, as long as one keeps in mind its limitations, eg the file drawer problem, publication bias http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misuse_of_statistics
22. Re:Zero warning by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-27 14:41 · Score: 0
  
  sorry but you are wrong . for example, prove that sqrt(2) isn't rational (i.e. the fraction never terminates)
  this can be done INDUCTIVELY , many different ways . There is a geometric proof that is easy to understand.
  The point is that you can prove something DOESN'T happen quite easily . You are stupid to say otherwise.
23. Re:Zero warning by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-27 20:33 · Score: 0
  
  This seems dangerously close to issues with Wittgenstein's thoughts on categorization, or more explicitly: let's say you determine that the liver cannot for some reason survive more than 60 minutes of being less than 35 degrees celsius, but then what next?
  - what if you transplant the liver with an artificial liver? Does the rat still contain the essential characteristics of 'rattiness'?
  - what if the rat is spectactularly fat, and so it takes longer for the liver to go below that temperature? Does that mean the rat is no longer a rat?
  - or long fur?
  - etc ...
  A generally accepted way to 'prove' negative hypotheses is to prove them at a specific statistical certainty level, eg 99% or 99.9%. This has obvious flaws, but it's generally useful, as long as one keeps in mind its limitations, eg the file drawer problem, publication bias http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misuse_of_statistics
  That just means that there is a grey area where you can't be certain. There still are environments, where you say with certainty that a rat (biological animal) will not survive for 2 hours, ever, and no amount of fur, fat, genetic engineering or artificial organs will save it. This is ultimately based on laws of thermodynamics: even if some complex molecules in rats body are incredibly lucky and don't break, not enough molecules can even theoretically and incredibly improbably survive, because the energy has to go somewhere. Thus, in many cases, you are able to "prove" the negative (quotes because in natural sciences, nothing is "proven" in the mathematical sense of the word", positive or negative).
  Well, of course you can go with the argument "because of quantum uncertainty, *anything* can happen", but that's a "GDI"-type argument that can be applied to anything, and thus is no argument at all. Not to mention, it's not necessarily true to begin with, we don't know the fabric of our universe so well that we can confidently say "anything is possible, even if it were very-very-...-very unlikely.
24. Re:Zero warning by Urkki · 2009-12-27 20:47 · Score: 1
  
  Sorry but you are conflating proof with observation and extrapolation. Your prediction that no rat can survive is based on very strong evidence but it's not proof. Nature does not have to obey logic, you cannot under any circumstances predict the future with 100% certainty. Proof is found in axiomatic systems such as maths, it is not found in science.
  But that applies to positive "proofs" as well, and I commented on the claim that you can never prove a negative.
  Of course the real glitch is thinking in the terms of positive/negative. It's better to ask for example "What are the parameters of an environment where no rat will survive for 2 hours, never ever". Then you can start with "temperature and pressure where entire mass of the planet containing the rat will reach ionization temperature in 2 hours due to laws of thermodynamics" and go down from that.
25. Re:Zero warning by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-27 21:10 · Score: 0
  
  Or the space along which it travels must be warped by gravity.
26. Re:Zero warning by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-27 21:18 · Score: 0
  
  Prove it by induction. Recall that real numbers are equivalence classes of Cauchy sequences of rationals.
27. Re:Zero warning by Al+Al+Cool+J · 2009-12-27 22:24 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  If you were to test it on every rat in existence, leading to the total exctinction of the rat species, then blow up the earth, and kill every other sentient being in the universe, while ascending to godhood and changing the laws of physics so that salt water can no longer exist, then I think that would pretty much prove it. Your problem is that you're just lazy.
28. Re:Zero warning by MrZilla · 2009-12-28 02:24 · Score: 1
  
  > You actually CAN prove negative statements . it is called INDUCTION. look it up ,
  For mathematics, yes. The example in the post you are replying to is biology. Nice try however.
  > You can also "prove" negative statements to high degrees of confidence using this other thing called STATISTICS . look it up ,
  "prove" != prove. The GP didn't say you couldn't get a high confidence that you are correct, he only said you cannot PROVE it. The type of proofs that can be taken as indisputable absolute truths are very rare outside of pure mathematics.
  
  --
  mov ax, 4c00h
  int 21h
29. Re:Zero warning by d36 · 2009-12-28 06:15 · Score: 1
  
  do proofs using induction exist in anything but math? I've never seen one for anything else
30. Re:Zero warning by afabbro · 2009-12-28 07:00 · Score: 1
  
  In your example, you have proven that some average survival time of your rats is 2.5hrs. That's a positive.
  I'm curious why that would be considered proven.
  You state that I can't prove that all rats die if put in 0-degree water for 4 hours, because even if I test 1,000,000 of them, rat # 1,000,001 might survive for 20 hours. However, you state above that I could say that the average survival time is 2.5 hours. How is that? What if rat #1,000,001 though 2,000,000 all survive for 20 hours? That would radically change the average time.
  Seems like you can't prove a negative or any summary statistic.
  
  --
  Advice: on VPS providers
and then bruce willis by circletimessquare · 2009-12-27 06:47 · Score: -1, Offtopic

and an orange hair milla jovovich stopped it in time by kissing with 4 rocks taken from the abdomen of a blue opera diva, after blowing up a chrome domed gary oldman and some french mid 1990s supermodels who morph into orcs. and chris tucker stuttered a lot
seriously, most entertaining french sci fi since jules verne

--
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
1. Re:and then bruce willis by chill · 2009-12-27 07:44 · Score: 1
  
  Damn, now I got to go dig thru my DVD collection and watch it again.
  Mmmmm...Milla.
  
  --
  Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Coincidence? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-27 06:49 · Score: 0

This happened 1 day after the 9.3 magnitude Indian Ocean earthquake.
Coincidence? I think not.
1. Re:Coincidence? by riverat1 · 2009-12-27 08:02 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, every large earthquake must be connected to a cosmic event? I think not.
2. Re:Coincidence? by Surt · 2009-12-27 09:54 · Score: 1
  
  Actually, due to the number of cosmic events, this is in fact true and inevitable. Every large earthquake is tightly correlated with a nice selection of cosmic events.
  
  --
  "Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
3. Re:Coincidence? by Mitchell314 · 2009-12-27 09:54 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Yes, although given the predisposition for earthquakes to cause magnetar flares, this is just too much to match up as coincidence.
  
  --
  I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
Cause by OverlordQ · 2009-12-27 06:51 · Score: 1, Funny

After investigating further, the scientists found that the the star likely ate at Chipotle earlier in the day.

--
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
ZOMG! Are we OK? by M5Hosting · 2009-12-27 06:52 · Score: 0

ZOMG! Are we OK? Are we still here? Did we survive?
1. Re:ZOMG! Are we OK? by Tablizer · 2009-12-27 07:18 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  It's okay. Quantum probability time-paths have resulted in a back-up of us. However, your next girlfriend will be 70% uglier than otherwise would have been. That's the price one pays for using quantum backup devices.
  
  --
  Table-ized A.I.
2. Re:ZOMG! Are we OK? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-27 07:47 · Score: 0
  
  Lucky for me, i used a custom firmware on it.
  I get all the hot stuff, easily.
3. Re:ZOMG! Are we OK? by TapeCutter · 2009-12-27 13:31 · Score: 1
  
  "However, your next girlfriend will be 70% uglier than otherwise would have been. That's the price one pays for using quantum backup devices."
  
  Yes, but it's raining dohnuts.
  
  --
  And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
4. Re:ZOMG! Are we OK? by Locke2005 · 2009-12-28 09:34 · Score: 1
  
  Wait... in this new time line, I actually HAVE a girlfriend?!? I hope my wife doesn't find out about her!
  
  --
  I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I don't know. by www.sorehands.com · 2009-12-27 07:03 · Score: 1

I don't know about the lights, but don't get me angry. You won't like me when I am angry!

--
Fight Spammers!
1. Re:I don't know. by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-27 10:48 · Score: 0
  
  I don't know about the lights, but don't get me angry. You won't like me when I am angry!
  Heck, we don't like you now ;)
50005 years ago? by rosencreuz · 2009-12-27 07:04 · Score: 1

So what if something big happened somewhere in universe 50005 years ago? Things happen, move on!
1. Re:50005 years ago? by JesseL · 2009-12-27 07:36 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  It didn't happen 50005 years ago, it happened 5 years ago and 50000 light years away. There is no objective time.
  
  --
  "Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
2. Re:50005 years ago? by Mateorabi · 2009-12-27 07:59 · Score: 1
  
  Lunchtime doubly so.
  
  --
  "You saved 1968." - Ms. Valerie Pringle to the crew of Apollo 8
3. Re:50005 years ago? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-27 08:00 · Score: 0
  
  If it doesn't mean anything to you then don't read it you small minded cunt.
4. Re:50005 years ago? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-27 08:10 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  5 years ago is "Earth receive time".
  50005 years ago is when it happened in Earth's frame of reference.
  There is no objective time, but that's not a reason to go on a crusade and burn every calendar and clock we have. We're on Earth, so we use Earth's frame of reference.
5. Re:50005 years ago? by Urkki · 2009-12-27 11:33 · Score: 1
  
  It didn't happen 50005 years ago, it happened 5 years ago and 50000 light years away. There is no objective time.
  No, you've got it all wrong. It's happening as we speak. Just ask the photons.
6. Re:50005 years ago? by X0563511 · 2009-12-27 19:39 · Score: 1
  
  Aaah the joys of relativity.
  I challenge you to figure out where and when the event actually happened relative to a given fixed position.
  Everything is moving around, and no given reference point sees where everything really is at any given time, just where it was at any given time in the past (depending on distance).
  Try not to think about it too hard. Your head will asplode.
  
  --
  For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
7. Re:50005 years ago? by JesseL · 2009-12-28 06:12 · Score: 1
  
  The reason your head will asplode is because you're still talking about stuff like "where everything really is" - which is meaningless.
  
  --
  "Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
50,000? by Tablizer · 2009-12-27 07:15 · Score: 2, 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).
Or sometimes far off stars merely have to "point" our way. Magnetism and other forces can focus radiation like a lens, and it may all point to a narrow spot in the sky. If your planet happens to be in the path of the beam, woes be. God doesn't play dice with the universe, he plays Russian Roulette. Time to buy some galactic insurance.

--
Table-ized A.I.
1. Re: 50,000? by bobbozzo · 2009-12-27 09:08 · Score: 1
  
  Or 5 ly, like Alpha Centauri!
  
  --
  Nothing to see here; Move along.
2. Re: 50,000? by Rockoon · 2009-12-27 10:20 · Score: 1
  
  If this planet were a lot closer to stars like the article describes, then we wouldn't be here to ask such questions.
  
  --
  "His name was James Damore."
3. Re: 50,000? by cffrost · 2009-12-28 09:02 · Score: 1
  
  (cue scary music)
  Roger, cuing scary music.
  
  --
  Thank you, Edward Snowden.
  
  "Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
It was me. by unity100 · 2009-12-27 07:21 · Score: 0, Offtopic

I activated my Saturday Night Fever Ray Device i hid near pluton. Puny earthlings. Expect more of this to come - i will turn all of you to freaks like below :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHWeuQyFouo#t=0m16s

--
Read radical news here
Pics! by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-27 07:37 · Score: 0

I really wish we could get actual photos of these awesome sounding stars. Hubble usually just shows a yellow/red/white dot and only when its many lightyears wide will it get the detail.
I would love to see real photos of this star up close.
1. Re:Pics! by Tablizer · 2009-12-27 07:57 · Score: 1
  
  I really wish we could get actual photos of these awesome sounding stars. Hubble usually just shows a yellow/red/white dot ... I would love to see real photos of this star up close.
  Just wait a few months, the LHC will trigger one for your viewing pleasure.
  
  --
  Table-ized A.I.
2. Re:Pics! by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-27 08:47 · Score: 0
  
  Whoever misses that will regret it for the rest of their lives. Hey, Tablizer, can you go make some popcorn, buddy?
3. Re:Pics! by symbolset · 2009-12-27 18:30 · Score: 1
  
  This page has an MPEG of the aftermath of this event.
  
  --
  Help stamp out iliturcy.
So that way I got a 771 error by Joe+The+Dragon · 2009-12-27 07:40 · Score: 1

So that way I got a 771 error
Tsunami by Lord+Lode · 2009-12-27 08:10 · Score: 4, Funny

That's just 1 day after the tsunami. Could there be a connection?!
1. Re:Tsunami by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-27 08:36 · Score: 0
  
  There is no scientific evidence to show that tsunamis cause stars 50,000 light years away to release gamma rays
2. Re:Tsunami by tgd · 2009-12-27 08:40 · Score: 1
  
  Thats what I call spooky action at a distance.
  I think the GP was trying to be funny, since Phil Platt's article mentions that specifically.
3. Re:Tsunami by symes · 2009-12-27 09:05 · Score: 1
  
  Unless some even more massive wave of as yet unmeasurable energy propogated across the universe causing both tsunami and quake on the magnetar.
4. Re:Tsunami by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-27 09:15 · Score: 1, Funny
  
  Unless some even more massive wave of as yet unmeasurable energy propogated across the universe causing both tsunami and quake on the magnetar.
  It was the midichlorians. George Lucas was right!
5. Re:Tsunami by John+Hasler · 2009-12-27 09:25 · Score: 1
  
  Not likely. Tsunamis rarely cause starquakes.
  
  --
  Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
6. Re:Tsunami by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-27 12:45 · Score: 0
  
  Still working with a limited deck of cards ... I see...
  Probably just human arrogance. If there is no explanation, then there is no correlation or causation.
7. Re:Tsunami by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-27 12:53 · Score: 0
  
  Finally, an open mind...
  Probably not correlation or causation, but at least someone is asking the right question!
8. Re:Tsunami by ColdWetDog · 2009-12-27 13:33 · Score: 1
  
  George Lucas was right!
  That means Jar-Jar Binks was real?
  
  NOOooooooo!
  
  --
  Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
9. Re:Tsunami by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-27 23:13 · Score: 0
  
  Not only is he real he's on National TV. His disguise is quite cunning, they call him Bill O'Reilly.
10. Re:Tsunami by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-28 01:31 · Score: 0
  
  Yeah, yeah. And when the traffic light changes ALMOST EXACTLY a second after a dog barks, only a narrow-minded fool would call it a 'coincidence'.
11. Re:Tsunami by WeeLad · 2009-12-28 03:22 · Score: 1
  
  Sure there's evidence. We now have one data point. I'll add it to the graph. You look for more.
  
  --
  Seriously, Don't take anything I say seriously.
coincidence ??? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-27 09:07 · Score: 0

interesting that it happened almost 7 years to the day before the winter solstice of 2012 .. did those Mayans know something after all ..
maybe the Buddhist too ..
THE TIMELESSNESS OF MIND
If one knows how to apply in a threefold manner this knowing of the mind,
all past knowledge lost to memory becomes perfectly clear, and also of the future thought of as unborn and unconcieved.
In the present, when the mind remains as it is naturally it is ordinarily comprehended in its own time.
THE TRANSCENDENT AT-ONE-MENT
There being really no duality, pluralism is untrue.
Until duality is transcended and at-one-ment realized Enlightenment cannot be attained.
The whole of Sangsara and Nirvana, as an inseparable unity, are one's own mind.
THE GREAT SELF-LIBERATION
Owing to worldly beliefs, which he is free to accept or reject, man wanders in Sangsara.
Therefore, practicing the Dharma, freed from every attachment,
grasp the whole essence of these teachings expounded in the yoga of Self-Liberation by Knowing the Mind in its Real Nature.
The truths set forth herein are known as 'The great Self-Liberation'; and in them culminates the Doctrine of the Great Ultimate Perfection.
THE GURU'S THIRD CHARGE TO THE DISCIPLES
Samaya gya, gya, gya.
THE NATURE OF MIND
That which is commonly called mind is of intuitive Wisdom.
Although the One Mind is, it has no existence.
Being the source of all the bliss of Nirvana and of all the sorrow of the Sangsara, it is cherished like the eleven Yanas.
THE NAMES GIVEN TO THE MIND
The various names given to it are innumerable.
Some call it 'The Mental Self'.
Certain heretics call it 'The Ego'.
By the Hinayanists it is called 'The Essentiality of Doctrines'.
By the Yogachara it is called 'Wisdom'.
Some call it 'The Means of Attaining the Other Shore of Wisdom'.
Some call it 'The Buddha Essence'.
Some call it 'The Great Symbol'.
Some call it 'The Sole Seed'.
Some call it 'The Potentiality of Truth'.
Some call it 'The All-Foundation'.
Other names, in ordinary language, are also given to it.
THE WONDEROUSNESS OF THESE TEACHINGS
This, self-originated Clear Light, eternally unborn, is a parentless babe of Wisdom. Wondrous is this.
Being non-created, it is Natural Wisdom. Wondrous is this.
Not having known birth, it knows not death. Wondrous is this.
Although it is Total Reality, there is no perceiver of it . Wondrous is this.
Although wandering in the Sangsara, it remains undefiled by evil. wondrous is this.
Although seeing the Buddha, it remains unallied to good. Wondrous is this.
Although possessed by all beings, it is not recognized. Wondrous is this.
Those not knowing the fruit of this yoga seek other fruit. Wondrous is this.
Although the Clear Light of Reality shines within one's own mind, the multitude look for it elsewhere. Wondrous is this.
1. Re:coincidence ??? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-27 11:14 · Score: 0
  
  Shut up.
2. Re:coincidence ??? by JWSmythe · 2009-12-27 12:58 · Score: 1
  
  tl;dr.
  I'll wait for the good remake of the movie, and just read the summary here on Slashdot.
  
  --
  Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Cheela by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-27 09:19 · Score: 0

I wonder how the Cheela are doing? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon%27s_Egg
How could it cause events before then? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-27 09:29 · Score: 0

No, because these were various kinds of high energy photons, which by definition travel at the speed of light. Nothing could have gotten here faster than light, so this is merely a coincidence. In the unlikely event you were claiming that the tsunami could have caused the burst of cosmic rays, I'd like to point out that it's 50k light years away from here. So if you wanted to connect the events, you'd have to connect it to something that happened a VERY long time ago.
1. Re:How could it cause events before then? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-28 04:36 · Score: 0
  
  The cosmic rays reached earth the day after, so if something was traveling just a hair faster or left a little earlier, it could've reached Earth first.
  
  If other particles traveling say 1.000051(29) times the speed of light were emitted, they could've reached Earth first. (IANA Physicist, but I am a googler!!). Or, if the gamma rays were slowed by travelling not-entirely-through-a-vacuum. The "map" in the article does show the magnetar being on the opposite side of the galactic center from Earth. That's a lot of mass to slow known-particles.
  
  Ooooh, here's an even better one. An alien civilization closer to the burst sent out a warning, which reacted badly with alien technology left on the ocean floor from the age of Atlantis. Or, it was a first-strike attack by Aliens harnessing their new Magnetars of Mass Destruction. I personally don't think we can afford to wait and see. It's time we strike back.
2. Re:How could it cause events before then? by WeeLad · 2009-12-28 04:56 · Score: 1
  
  "1.000051(29) times the speed of light".
  Neutrinos? (from the wikipedia page).
  
  I don't think it's totally ridiculous to assume that different particles with different magnetic moments were affected differently by the immense magnetic field of a magnetar. But if the Gamma, Xray, and radio waves arrive within seconds of each other, it's hard to imagine another particle could've made the trip 1.5 days quicker. But maybe that's just my lack of imagination and poor math skills.
  
  --
  Seriously, Don't take anything I say seriously.
3. Re:How could it cause events before then? by Lord+Lode · 2009-12-28 08:23 · Score: 1
  
  Maybe the particles that causes the tsunami also started 1.5 days earlier.
Was there anyone in space that day? by bertoelcon · 2009-12-27 09:40 · Score: 1

Seriously this sounds like the event that made the Fantastic Four, maybe some astronauts or cosmonauts need to be checked.

--
Anything can be found funny, from a certain point of view.
1. Re:Was there anyone in space that day? by rrohbeck · 2009-12-27 10:04 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Phil says further down in the comments that the ISS was behind the earth when the main pulse hit.
  If it had been in front, the astronauts would have gotten the equivalent of a dental X-ray.
  
  --
  thegodmovie.com - watch it
2. Re:Was there anyone in space that day? by Thanshin · 2009-12-27 19:54 · Score: 1
  
  Seriously this sounds like the event that made the Fantastic Four, maybe some astronauts or cosmonauts need to be checked.
  I call dibs on checking the chick you've not yet found. You can keep the rocky formation, the Bonzo impersonator and the unmanly... unmanlily? ...unmanley?... gay stretchy guy.
3. Re:Was there anyone in space that day? by HTH+NE1 · 2009-12-28 05:17 · Score: 1
  
  On an outer-space adventure
  They got hit by cosmic rays
  And the four would change forever
  In some most fantastic ways
  No need to fear
  They're here
  Just call for Four
  Fantastic Four
  "Don't need no more."
  "That's ungrammatical!"
  Oh, Reed Richards is elastic
  Sue can fade from sight
  Johnny is The Human Torch
  The Thing just loves to fight
  Call for Four
  Fantastic Four
  Fantastic Four
  There's Galactus looking hungry
  And old Dr. Doom is near
  Here come the Skrulls invading
  Do you run and hide in fear?
  No way, no way
  No way
  Just call for Four
  Fantastic Four
  "That's all. No more. Now that's grammatical!"
  Oh, Reed Richards is elastic
  Sue can fade from sight
  Johnny is The Human Torch
  The Thing just loves to fight
  Call for Four
  Fantastic Four
  Fantastic Four
  
  --
  Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
4. Re:Was there anyone in space that day? by Locke2005 · 2009-12-28 09:30 · Score: 1
  
  Seriously this sounds like the event that made the Fantastic Four, maybe some astronauts or cosmonauts need to be checked. Well, there was that good-looking astronaut named Sue Richards that was in orbit at the time, but they can't check her because for some reason nobody can find her. When asked about it, NASA's only reply was "We haven't seen her."
  
  --
  I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
5. Re:Was there anyone in space that day? by bertoelcon · 2009-12-28 09:43 · Score: 1
  
  It was Sue Storm who was in orbit.
  
  --
  Anything can be found funny, from a certain point of view.
6. Re:Was there anyone in space that day? by Locke2005 · 2009-12-28 10:02 · Score: 1
  
  Well, the uppity little bitch SHOULD HAVE CHANGED HER NAME when she married Reed Richards!!! (Seeing corrections made by authoritative experts on the cast of old comic books is just one of the reasons I read slashdot.)
  
  --
  I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Blasted Whom? by Doc+Ruby · 2009-12-27 09:51 · 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
1. Re:Blasted Whom? by JWSmythe · 2009-12-27 13:12 · Score: 1
  
  It's all relative. :)
  There will be some very upset folks in the future. Eventually, we will meet up with some ancient space traveling race, and they've already mapped 10x our visible universe. We'll find out that the the magnetic alignment of North and South, universally South is considered "up", and our solar system is on a weird tilt compared to other populated systems. Because of that tilt, it's knocked all of our planets on weird axis tilts, and has made humans deformed by universal standards. They'll also explain that because of these deformities, we had been a tourist attraction for millennia. 90% of the UFO sitings were actually visitors taking pictures. The other 10% were just nutjobs misidentifying other natural things. And, the Roswell incident was a huge practical joke, where they dropped something resembling a weather balloon with funny writing on it, just to watch how we'd react.
  Oh ya, and they never made any crop circles. Those were all just humans playing practical jokes on each other. :)
  Wait until you see the practical joke they have planned for Dec 21, 2012. It'll have people talking for years. :) They've had that planned for a while.
  But, back to your topic, if a star directly up from the South pole did the same thing, then the southern hemisphere would see it. (obviously).
  
  --
  Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
2. Re:Blasted Whom? by Doc+Ruby · 2009-12-27 13:18 · Score: 1
  
  Thank you for answering none of my questions, including an answer you denoted as obvious.
  
  --
  --
  make install -not war
3. Re:Blasted Whom? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-27 14:04 · Score: 0
  
  i have one question to add to yours: during those 200ms, was I 'sun'bathing or indoors?
4. Re:Blasted Whom? by JWSmythe · 2009-12-27 14:46 · Score: 1
  
  Well, it's all relative.
  From This report
  "SGR 180620 was 5.25 from the Sun at the time of these observations"
  From This report
  "The times of the flares were 21:28:03.5 and 21:30:26.6 UTC"
  So, if you could see our Sun at those times (+- 5.25), or you could see the moon, you could see it. Other reports indicated that it was clearly reflected off the moon also, which would be expected.
  Check the star chart for that time. If Sagittarius was visible, it's likely the flash was too.
  Your repeated question of where are we looking is kind of redundant. We have a full view of the sky at all times. The location of the observer is key to this though. I have no idea where you are, so we may be standing on opposite sides of the planet looking up. For the galactic center, check the star charts for your location and local time, for visibility of Sagittarius A. From my location, I'll be able to see it on Dec 21, 2012, around 2pm, low to the south. It'll be kinda bright, so unless the sun happens to burn out I won't be seeing much other than blue skies.
  
  --
  Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
5. Re:Blasted Whom? by Smitty825 · 2009-12-27 14:58 · Score: 1
  
  The earth always "points" the same direction, towards Polaris in the North. (Always is relative..., but in this instance, "always" defines a few human lifetimes)
  So, since the center of the galaxy is located somewhere between Sagittarius and Scorpius, and those constellations are visible during the northern hemisphere's summer, I'm assuming that the Northern Hemisphere points away from the Galatic center, while the Southern Hemisphere points (slightly) towards the center.
  
  --
  
  Doh!
6. Re:Blasted Whom? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-27 16:08 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  That's an interesting question.
  I did some quick calculations, and it appears that the blast was "above" 23.28 degrees S and 142.13 degrees W. This is over ocean, but Tahiti (and other islands) are nearby.
7. Re:Blasted Whom? by Doc+Ruby · 2009-12-27 16:39 · Score: 1
  
  A given point on the Earth's surface faces one half the universe at any time, with the other half blocked by the Earth behind it (actually the unblocked part is a little bigger than the blocked part because the Earth's surface curves back into the blocked part). It's a given point on the surface, most of which points (except for the poles) travel in a circle around the Earth's axis, and with the Earth in an ellipse around the Sun, that I'm talking about.
  
  --
  --
  make install -not war
8. Re:Blasted Whom? by Doc+Ruby · 2009-12-27 16:43 · Score: 1
  
  We have a winner :).
  Interesting that the blast hit the Earth from an angle at which nearly all Earth's humans were blocked by the mass of our planet. "Near Tahiti" is approximately the center of the least populated hemisphere on Earth.
  
  --
  --
  make install -not war
9. Re:Blasted Whom? by RockDoctor · 2009-12-27 17:34 · Score: 1
  
  for visibility of Sagittarius A. From my location, I'll be able to see it on Dec 21, 2012, around 2pm, low to the south. It'll be kinda bright, so unless the sun happens to burn out I won't be seeing much other than blue skies.
  Hmmm, and Eta Carinae is in the same general area of the sky as Saggitarius (speaks the northern-hemisphericist, using a broad brush).
  If *that* star pops at *that* time (in Earth's reference frame, I for one hail our new hypernova-wielding-JWSmythe overlords!
  
  --
  Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
10. Re:Blasted Whom? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-28 00:50 · Score: 0
  
  SGT means Sagittarius, therefore the blast came from that constellation, galaxy's core is in that direction also. This piece of sky is pretty much under or behind the horizon most of the time in the northern hemisphere.
11. Re:Blasted Whom? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-28 02:43 · Score: 0
  
  Doesn't matter which way the Earth was facing, I know I was indoors. Sniff.
Eta Carinae by AliasMarlowe · 2009-12-27 10:11 · 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
1. Re:Eta Carinae by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-27 13:14 · Score: 0
  
  Hi, just wanted to ask.
  Due to the fact that it's 8000 light years away, doesn't that mean it's possible it already went supernova and we just haven't seen it yet? The screwy time travel type deal is one of the things I really can't wrap my head around when reading about astronomy.
  "Guys, guys! I found a star that will have had exploded 70,000 years ago! It's 70,000 light years away so it willen haden't explodedill for us 5 years from now!"
2. Re:Eta Carinae by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-27 15:01 · Score: 0
  
  The annoying thing, of course, being that it may already have gone supernova. We won't be able to tell whether it has or not until the wave hits us. Fragging speed of light observations...
3. Re:Eta Carinae by MiniMike · 2009-12-28 03:00 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, anything that happens at a point 8000 light years away will not be visible here until 8000 years later, assuming 'here' doesn't move closer or further away. It's not really time travel. Use the classic sound analogy- imagine someone visible yet some distance away (a few miles or km away, depending on which country you're in) sets off a large firecracker. You know when the firecracker goes off because you can see the flash, but it might take a few seconds for the sound to reach you due to the info being limited to the speed of sound. Similarly, it takes time to see things that happen a far away, due to the info being limited to the speed of light.
stupidist density comparision yet by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-27 11:32 · Score: 0

That’s very roughly the combined mass of every single car on the United States, squeezed down into the size of a sugar cube.
---
Astronomy Feed @ Feed Distiller
1. Re:stupidist density comparision yet by JWSmythe · 2009-12-27 13:15 · Score: 1
  
  ... and getting thrown through your car window. :)
  The difference between that and say a bullet? Not too much, except for the gravitational influence it would have. Kinda something along the style of Tunguska incident. The hole would be trivial at that point.
  
  --
  Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Nope. There was about 43.5 hours between them by complete+loony · 2009-12-27 12:52 · Score: 1

Since the tsunami was west of the dateline, and TFA didn't mention the time or coordinate system used, I thought it might have been possible...
But according to wikipedia, the earthquake that caused the tsunami occurred at 2004-12-26 00:58 UTC. According to this paper, the "cosmic onslaught" hit us at 2004-12-27 21:30 UTC.
So, no. It isn't possible for the neutron star event to have caused the tsunami as it was outside of the tsunami event's light cone.

--
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
1. Re:Nope. There was about 43.5 hours between them by Steve+Max · 2009-12-28 09:40 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, the magnetar was outside the tsunami's light cone by around 50000 light-years. Remember, even if the earthquake had enough energy that could propagate through vacuum, that information will only reach the magnetar in ~50 thousand years. Yeah, the earthquake probably emitted some energy in gravitational waves and gravitational waves propagate in vacuum, but a really, really small amount of energy went that way; and you can safely say that the amount of energy from it that will someday reach the magnetar will not be enough to crack anything on it.
Imagine a Beowulf Cluster of those by play_in_traffic · 2009-12-27 12:54 · Score: 1

Imagine what you could do with a Beowulf Cluster of them there Magnetars
Re:Eta Carinae... what about WR104? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-27 15:59 · Score: 0

Unlike Eta Carinae, we *ARE* directly in path of the gamma ray blast of WR104 if it goes nova. So.... don't worry be happy
Cover Up! by Anonymous Coward · 2009-12-28 07:27 · Score: 0

Clearly this story is a cover up for the real event which was the explosion of a massive space station a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away!