"Astronomers around the world recorded late last year the brightest explosion ever of high-energy X-rays and gamma rays - a split-second flash from the other side of our galaxy that was strong enough to affect the Earth's atmosphere..."
and
" 'It was the mother of all magnetic flares - a true monster,' said Kevin Hurley, a research physicist at UC Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory..."
and
"...Thought to be a mighty cataclysm in a super-dense, highly magnetized star called a magnetar, it emitted as much energy in two-tenths of a second as the sun gives off in 250,000 years.
Its intrinsic power was a thousand times greater than the power of all other stars in the galaxy put together, and ten thousand times brighter than the brightest supernova..."
and
"As the radiation stormed through our solar system, it blitzed at least 15 spacecraft, knocking their instruments off-scale whether or not they were pointing in the magnetar's direction.
Such energetic X-rays and gamma rays pass right through satellites, Hurley said, though the Earth's atmosphere absorbs them, both protecting us and preventing observation by surface telescopes. One Russian satellite, Coronas-F, detected gamma rays that had bounced off the moon..."
This kinda stuff is way beyond my understanding.
(short nap eh....I got 2hrs in this morning and just finished a shift so I am going to lurk untill 2 and call it a night as 7am is just around the corner)
Dear God,
No more quakes tonight please or I will be halucinating due to lack of sleep. Thanks, OP