Huge 'star-quake' rocks Milky Way

bbc news ^ | 18 February, 2005 | unknown

[ServesURight]

Keanu Reeves voice: "Whoa."

[UCANSEE2]

This is a once-in-a-lifetime event

Famous last words.

[ScottFromSpokane]

Where's the "kaboom"?

Oh, there it is.

[maine-iac7]

If the explosion had been within just 10 light-years, Earth could have suffered a mass extinction, it is said

Maybe the Gods be getting angry...practicing

[claudiustg]

---If the explosion had been within just 10 light-years, Earth could have suffered a mass extinction, it is said.---

And what has Bush done to protect us from this? And how did the intelligence community fail to see it coming?

[Graybeard58]

If the explosion had been within just 10 light-years, Earth could have suffered a mass extinction

Alarmist B.S. There is a big difference between 50,000 light years and 10 light years.

If my aunt had testicles she would be my uncle.

[NEBUCHADNEZZAR1961]

Agreed....no star exploding that far away could have created such a huge energy disturbance 50,000 LY away.

[Deb]

And I couldn't find my camera!

[budman_2001]

VOA News:

Whatever the cause, the blitz of radiation expanded outward in a bubble at about one-fourth the speed of light. This energy soon showered Earth's upper atmosphere, tearing apart atoms in a region called the ionosphere to a greater depth than an ordinary solar flare and causing them to glow. It was so powerful that it pushed the instruments of 15 spacecraft off scale, whether or not they were pointing in its direction. It also saturated a U.S. telescope watching in x-ray wavelengths.

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

spacenami

[Vicomte13]

It's Bush's fault.

[speedy]

Does this mean we're looking at some serious trouble in a few hundred million years?

[Larry Lucido]

Alarmist B.S. There is a big difference between 50,000 light years and 10 light years.

Plus, there aren't many stars within 10 light years of us. Kind of like saying "If the Stockholm had hit my house instead of the Andrea Doria, there would have been nothing left of my house."

[Darkwolf377]

"If the explosion had been within just 10 light-years, Earth could have suffered a mass extinction, it is said."

And as the massive shockwave hit the earth, wiping all of mankind from its surface, several million dweebs thought, as one: "The world can't end! I haven't seen Revenge of the Sith yet!!!!"

[Paradox]

I think the idea with this statement is to give some idea of the power of the explosion. An explosion that is 10 LY away, and can STILL kill everything on the planet, is a mighty powerful explosion indeed.

There could possibly be things out there that we are unable to detect at this point, which could someday threaten all life on earth, and make the Kyoto agreement look like a massive circle jerk..

[budman_2001]

History of this thing:

Goddard Space Flight Center

[Technical Editor]

I think they were trying only to convey the power of the thing, not say anything about such an event actually taking place within that distance (10 ly).

[Vicomte13]

For some reason, the thought "By fire next time" sorta popped into my head.

[Larry Lucido]

Of course. Plus it appears that the Centauri system is within 5 lys, so we gotta keep our eyes peeled in that direction too.