Brightest Galactic Flash Ever Detected Hits Earth

Space.Com ^ | 18 February, 2005 | Robert Roy Britt

[BobS]

The answer is here:

[BobS]

"That sounds so . . . primitive. Is light the fastest thing around?"

No.

[clyde asbury]

She's sitting next to Einstein, which makes sense, I guess. They're both very successful in their chosen fields.

[clyde asbury]

About 100 times as bright as the sun's visible radiation, but it only lasts for a few hours at most, and dissipates in the upper atmosphere.

Still, human life on the side facing the blast would be gone, wouldn't it?

[clyde asbury]

One other cute image there, with equations on a chalkboard behind her. Surreal and funny. They are in wallpaper formats.

Very nice site. Britney is used to make it more interesting to young students, probably.

[UCANSEE2]

Thank you for your response. I am not insisting my theory is correct. It is just my theory. I am always looking for new information which can tell me if my theory(s) are wrong.

I learn so much more from being wrong, than from being right.

Is is possible that a neutron star could undergo some other kind of transformation (other than the supernova phase) that we are not aware of yet that would allow this possibility?

I know that is kind of a self-supporting and unanswerable question, unless you can provide me with a good NO answer.

Which wouldn't bother me. Always happy to find the truth, whatever it may be.

[UCANSEE2]

Funny, for all of our perception of Britney being the stereotypical example of a 'dumb blonde', you would be surprised at how intelligent she actually is. (well, except for her dealings with matrimony!)

[JSteff]

There was a fictional book back before 1990 or 91 that talked about a singularity inside the earth. It also spoke about the Internet before it was even really on the scene and the part it plays on getting the word out.

Believe it or not I think it was called "Earth" or "Gaia" or some derivation of that one of two. A google search turned up a book by David Brin who seems to be conservative. Interesting (in a fun way) type of read. But pretty much as you talk about.

[Captain Beyond]

bump

[DannyTN]

Does this mean all our neighbors on the other side of the galaxy were wiped out?

[UCANSEE2]

My theory was that life capable planets have this type of core, non life capable planets do not.

So, until we can determine if those planets can and/or do support life, I couldn't say for sure.

My guess, is yes.

Mars, maybe.
Venus, probably.
Pluto, no. (don't think it is really a planet anyway. )
Mercury, no. (mercury, same category as pluto)

Those are my guesses. And truly, it is all idle speculation.

[UCANSEE2]

Is light the fastest thing around?

No. Dark matter is.

[clyde asbury]

..you would be surprised at how intelligent she actually is.

I don't doubt that at all. That's why I said I thought she was included on the site - basically to add spice to a dry subject.

The wallpapers are still funny.

[Servant of the 9]

A google search turned up a book by David Brin who seems to be conservative. Interesting (in a fun way) type of read. But pretty much as you talk about.

Brin is a hard Science Fiction writer, and also a professor of Astrophysics. I imagine you can take his description of the results of a black hole impinging on Earth as gospel.

So9

[El Gato]

Marking this for support on my theory that the core of the Earth is a neutron star, which went supernova and collapsed to the size mentioned, attracting debris to it and forming the layers around the core up to the mantle and surface of the Earth. It is the 'engine' that generates the heat, keeping the magma hot, and generates the magnetic and electrical fields via interaction with solar energy passing past the Earth from the sun.

The earth is much too light to have a neutron star at its core. By definition neutron stars have the mass of stars, and surface gravities that go with that mass and radius. The earth doesn't have that sort of surface gravity, even given the much larger than a neutron star radius. Thus there is no neutron start at the earth's core. Rather a large ball of nickle-iron.

[clyde asbury]

Is is possible that a neutron star could undergo some other kind of transformation (other than the supernova phase) that we are not aware of yet that would allow this possibility?

None that I know, but I'm not an professional astronomer or astrophysicist. There are professionals in those areas on FR, I bet. I know of at least one particle physicist.

But what you're proposing would have to be one very tiny piece of a neutron star, from the gravitational effects alone. Venus is the same mass as the earth, so it would need one, too, the same with the other planets.

It's been proved pretty definitively that planetary formation occurs fine on its own without these gravitational catalysts. But there are always unknowns out there, like this flash.

[El Gato]

Is light the fastest thing around?

According to Einstein, yes. As far as we know today the answer is still yes. However there are beginning to be cracks in that theory, or at least ways around the limitation are beginning to show themselves.

[e_engineer]

Still, human life on the side facing the blast would be gone, wouldn't it?

No, not if it was 10 light years away. The radiation would not reach the ground, and the heat might not propagate to the surface either. It would be more easily noticed at night if there were no clouds.

The quote from the article claimed there would be mass extinction due to the ozone layer being damaged, but that is not really possible. The ozone layer is caused by UV (sunlight) disassociating oxygen molecules in the upper atmosphere.

If you still have sunlight and oxygen, you will have ozone.

[finnman69]

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Another G'ould Mothership bites the dust...