Brightest Galactic Flash Ever Detected Hits Earth

[metalman]

"This is a once-in-a-lifetime event," said Rob Fender of Southampton University in the UK. "We have observed an object only 20 kilometers across [12 miles], on the other side of our galaxy, releasing more energy in a tenth of a second than the Sun emits in 100,000 years."

[asian1]

Hi
I read from ABC:

Many questions will be thrown up by the event, including the intriguing speculation that the dinosaurs may have been wiped out by a similar, closer gamma-ray explosion 65 million years ago, and not by climate change inflicted by an asteroid impact.

"Had this happened within 10 light years of us, it would have severely damaged our atmosphere and possibly have triggered a mass extinction," said lead-author Gaensler.

The good news, he noted, is that the nearest known magnetar to Earth, 1E 2259+586, is about 13,000 light years away.

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Is this theory possible or not?

How to detect such radiation with mass extinction on earth hundreds million of years ago?

[blobrana]

Yes it’s possible,
though the probability is very low that one or more large asteroids impacting at the same time as increased volcanic activity coincided with a very rare star quake (there are only four other known neutron stars which are classed both as an ultra-magnetic magnetar and as a soft gamma repeater)…

Supernova are a bit more common, but they leave the tell tale signature of iron-60, so their influence on the earth can be traced, (intrestingly, the last time was about 3 million years ago – roughly about the time of the emergence of humans and climatic change)

As a side note, The nearest concern is the star Betelgeuse, at about ~520 light years away, it will go supernova within a few million years (may happen tommorow though).

 520 light years is probably far enough away that earth would be safe.
It would only be as bright as the moon.
A supernova exploding 25- 50 light-years would most likely be fatal to all life on Earth …

Aren’t you glad you live in the galactic outer-suburbs…

[graffias79]

Although not nearly as close as Betelgeuse, I hear Eta-Carinae is close to going 'boom' as well...

[Cymric]

Betelgeuse a supernova? I thought it was just a big ole' friendly red giant?

[blobrana]

Hum,
>>friendly red giant?

I suspect you weren’t around when the volatile star pack known as the Scorpius-Centaurus OB Association passed near the solar system several million years ago....

The next member of the gang expected to go supernova is Antares

Good riddance

[Wain]

In related news...

Hoagland notes that the flash from his instant camera looks at least as bright as anything he's ever seen by simply looking up at the sky at night, proving that all Nova related phenomenon are actually flashes from giant cameras that were built by aliens to take pictures of the earth.  The flashes are necessary "because space is dark and the earth moves too quickly to be captured without a flash just using a low shutter speed"

Next month we'll be hearing excerpts from Hoagland's new book "The Truth About the Sun" where he shows through devastatingly simple math how the sun in fact does not exist, there is no day or daylight, and we only think these things are there because we have been lied to about it from astronomers and scientists.

[Floid]

Wain wrote:
In related news...

Hoagland notes that the flash from his instant camera looks at least as bright as anything he's ever seen by simply looking up at the sky at night, proving that all Nova related phenomenon are actually flashes from giant cameras that were built by aliens to take pictures of the earth.  The flashes are necessary "because space is dark and the earth moves too quickly to be captured without a flash just using a low shutter speed"

I haven't been keeping track of this, but I was just reminded of how the Viking biological experiment(s) had as much a chance of sterilizing Martian life (within the test apparatus) as encouraging it...

Anyone want to write a story?

[Karlos]

@Wain

Hmm, you say it as if in jest! Hoaglands rigourous scientific process is beyond question!

The alien papparazzi are busy snapping away as we speak...