[neverdem]

NASA's news release:

Cosmic Explosion Among the Brightest in Recorded History

[neverdem]

ping

[neverdem]

FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.

[King Prout]

as usual, I missed it.

[King Prout]

dead star went boom.

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

I knew I felt something weird in December...turns out all those gamma rays exfoliated my inner child.

[zeugma]

I can't believe this things rotational velocity. From what I understand, they normally spin much faster than that. The best example of why is the classic one of an ice skater twirling with her arms out. She pulls them in and spins faster. Imagine the spin that would be imparted when an object collapsed from something as big or likely bigger tan our sun into a sphere a dozen miles across.

I seem to recall microsecond and faster rotation times for neutron stars. Could be my addled brain playing tricks on me again.

[Blue Jays]

Hi All-

Starburst Was One of Brightest Objects Observed on Earth? For a minute, I thought it said Starbucks Was One of Brightest Objects Observed on Earth. That's a relief!

The barristas I've met at Starbucks usually aren't that bright (but they think they are with their Theater History degrees) and generally have multiple face piercings and green hair.

OK, back to the topic at hand...

~ Blue Jays ~

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

fyi

[thoughtomator]

The dimmest object ever observed on Earth:

... and the widest object ever observed on Earth:

[Recall]

I'll read it tomorrow. I just read:

Starbucks Was One of Brightest Objects Observed on Earth

It's 2:30 am..lol

[WestVirginiaRebel]

It was really done to fool the Cylons...

[ThreeYearLurker]

Here's a picture!

[Blue_Ridge_Mtn_Geek]

Since the object in question is 50 thousand light years away, the December event is a "delayed report" of an event at the object 50 thousand years ago (supposing that the speed of light in a vacuum really is constant over time).

Likely there are many other "delayed reports" out there. For all we know, the center of our galaxy detonated thousands of years ago and will, in due course, sweep away our world entirely. It's due for something like that anyway (2Pet3:10-13), although the timing is obscure.

[PatrickHenry]

This was posted twice before, the first time with the NASA title:
Cosmic Explosion Among the Brightest in Recorded History; and the someone posted it a second time, using some other title:
Brightest Galactic Flash Ever Detected Hits Earth.

[Verginius Rufus]

It's called SGR 1806-20 and is in the constellation Sagittarius, which is abbreviated SGR, so I thought the designation must be from its location until I read that SGR means "soft gamma repeater." Good thing it wasn't a hard gamma repeater.

Its magnetic field is a quadrillion times that of earth. We're talking serious numbers here--one quadrillion is 1000 times one trillion.

Meanwhile, today is the birthday of Nicolaus Copernicus, the founder of modern astronomy.

[Amelia]

This happened just before or just after the big tsunami?

[P.O.E.]

As I've been saying for years, this is the main reason why we should not transport White Castles cheeseburgers into the sun.

[Bogey78O]

Makes me wonder what's the possibility of a star exploding nearby and causing massive comm failure worldwide.