Huge Star Quake Rocks Milky Way 548
SJrX writes "The BBC is reporting that scientists have detected "the biggest explosion observed by humans within [the past 400 years]". The explosion luckily occured about 50,000 light years away form us, on the far side of the Milky Way, as the article goes on to say that had the explosion been within 10 light years of us, it "would possibly have triggered a mass extinction.""
Equation constraints (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Equation constraints (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Equation constraints (Score:3, Informative)
No, it won't (Score:5, Insightful)
If anyone wants to cruise for mod points, you could do an order-of-magnitude estimate of the fraction of irradiated stars using the age and total volume of the Milky Way, the mean time between SGR flares of this magnitude (call it a decade to a century), and the radius of OMG-We're-All-Gonna-Die that was specified in the article.
Of course, the supernova explosion that led to a magnetar's formation would would have already done quite a bit of damage to the surrounding area, so they aren't likely to have any meaningful impact on any planetary systems around them anyway.
Re:No, it won't (Score:5, Funny)
Re:No, it won't (Score:5, Insightful)
Put another way, it would be like worrying about being deafened by the shock wave of a nuclear bomb going off a mile away.
Re:No, it won't (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Equation constraints (Score:4, Interesting)
Given our rather limited data on the matter, what makes you think the Drake equation is anything more than a structured guess?
Re:Equation constraints (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Equation constraints (Score:5, Informative)
These sort of estimation games are really valuable in lots of branches of science and often lead to insight. Enrico Fermi used to do this all the time, which is especially relvant since his "Fermi Paradox" about how it's strange we haven't encountered alien intelligences is the same sort of thing that Drake formalized.
Re:Equation constraints (Score:5, Interesting)
Here are some things we do know:
But let's step back a bit, and look at the processes that life goes through as a whole. A long, long time ago, there were no multi-cellular life forms on earth. At first, just organic compounds. Then something appeared (maybe some kind of virus?). Eventually, single cell organism appeared. Things stayed like this for an awfully long time. Then, multi-cellular organisms appeared. These multi-cellular organisms gave rise to something we call consciousness. One version of these creatures - humans - developed quite sophisticated consciousnesses. These units of consciousness, together gave rise to very interesting 'things' such as language, memes, and other insubstantial, but very real 'things'.
See the pattern? What we see here is a continuous pattern of units coming together and creating units out of their aggregate which possess qualities fundamentally transcendant than those of their parts. Particles > Atoms > Molecules > Compounds > Cells > Organisms > Consciousness > Memes and so on.
I would buy the argument that life is very common in the Universe, and even the Milky Way. The vastness of it all seems to make it so probable. But what if our current point in evolution is only a brief transitional state, in the grand scheme of things? We have only been radio communicators for about one hundred years or so. That is a super super tiny blip in time. A lot of us seem to assume that the future will be like some sort of Star Trek reality or something, where technological advancement is the primary area of change. But what if what we are going through is more of a spiritual evolution - one that we have only just begun, and one that will ultimately transcend our own existence as we know it?
For all we know, we could be surrounded by alien consciousness all the time, and not even know it, much the same way a bacteria has very limited awareness of the presence of humans, let alone any concept of what one is.
Re:Equation constraints (Score:3, Interesting)
I am not so sure about that. The avarage distance to other civilisations is proportional to how rare life is. Unless our observation technology improves vastly, I don't think we'll detect anything. Look at it this way, can we detect earth over many lightyears just by searching for human activities with our current technology? I don't think so. Another thing
Re:Equation constraints (Score:3, Informative)
Are we?
If you're assesment of our current detection abilities isn't shy at least an order of magnitude seti would have to be pretty lucky indeed (lottery levels at least) to pick up anything.
Only if we were watching out for everyday TV and radio signals. If we looked for a directed signal we could detect it half way across the galaxy.
The thing about space is it's not big, but mindsh
Re:Equation constraints (Score:5, Interesting)
What if it has taken 13 billion years for intelligent life to evolve and we are the first to do so?
What if life flares up and dies out again within a few million years?
What if this galaxy only contains a few planets with intelligent life and far apart, but other galaxies contains life in abundance. The distances makes it very difficult to communicate.
What if the universe is full of life but because of distances it is not possible or extremly difficult to communicate?
It is a very interesting area, but unfortunatly we can do little more than speculate. And yes, SETI is just a speculation, a speculation based on how WE think another life-form would communicate. Alas, I will never live to find out if there is life on other planets.
A scary theory (Score:3, Insightful)
A short post cannot contain much detail. As far as humans are concerned we see
Re:Equation constraints (Score:4, Insightful)
We know that in our experience, something man-made, such as a car does not just appear, but is the product of intelligent design and purposeful construction, all arising out of a thing we call mind.
Well duh, man made things are made by man.
why is it BELIEVED that even a singe cell 'appeared' out of seemingly nowhere?
It isn't. A single cell is thought to be the product of about 1-2B years of evolution, starting with much simpler organisms.
Indeed, as you say, life could be common in the universe, but why can it not be attributed to a mind that has made it happen in many places.
So aliens are seeding life though the universe? Who made them? When you get down to it, someone has to be the first and, new evidence notwithstanding, it may as well be us.
Why is it so hard to admit that the order and information content of the "natural" world is the product of a mind just as the products of our modern technological world are conceived in the minds of their creators?
That's a religious argument and has no place in science. Specifically, it allows no new understanding or predictions. Save your ID stuff for philosophy.
Re:Equation constraints (Score:5, Interesting)
It isn't.
It's believed that self-replicating molecules appeared. It's believed that self-replicating molecules that synthesized lipids were better replicators than those that didn't. It's believed that mitochondria - which aren't much more than bits of RNA with a wrapper around it - were once independent lifeforms, predating cells by a wide margin. Single-celled organisms that use mitochondria as fuel source are a pretty natural extension -- just a big lipid layer around a benign environment for self-replicating molecules.
> Microbiology has shown that a "simple" cell is more complicated by far than anything ever designed by humans.
It's also a lot more complicated than anything taught at the high school (or even undergraduate) biology classes.
> Why is it so hard to admit that the order and information content of the "natural" world is the product of a mind just as the products of our modern technological world are conceived in the minds of their creators? All of science would still be just as fascinating and useful if that BELIEF were accepted as the cause for the origin of the order, design and laws that scientists seek to explore.
Because most people (such as proponents of ID) find something they can't explain, bow down before it as evidence of God's genius, and then stop investigating. After all, if something's "irreducably" complex, why bother investigating it any further?
Meanwhile, us scientists (whether we believe in God or not -- and I, as a scientist and a Christian, see no contradiction between evolution and my faith) will continue on doing science.
Here endeth the science lesson and beginneth the metaphysics/theology.
Have you ever considered that a God smart enough to create a universe 13.8 billion years ago out of a few physical constants, just might be smart enough to create a universe in which intelligent life spontaneously evolved (on Earth, and perhaps on billions of other worlds) to recognize His existence?
Have you ever further condidered that a God smart enough to pull off a stunt like that is probably a hell of a lot smarter than one who had to manually kludge in lifeforms, regardless of whether he whipped the thing up a mere 6000 years ago, or even if he created the universe, and has spent most of the past 3 billion years constantly hacking in things like cells, multicellular organisms, eyes, lungs, exploding beetles, and the human cerebral cortex and what-not every few hundred million years?
I know which one I'd consider the more glorious. Why do you cram your God into such a small box?
Re:Equation constraints (Score:3, Insightful)
Because what you are describing is metaphysics, not science. I generally have no problem with you or anyone holding
Re:Equation constraints (Score:5, Informative)
I guess I've observed there too many times for such a joke to be funny. Lick Observatory is named after James Lick who funded the establishment of the Observatory back in the 1890s. It's an interesting place -- the first observatory put on a mountaintop (it was originally going to be in downtown San Francisco, imagine that). His ashes are kept in a memorial under the 36 inch refractor.
It's a spectacularly pretty location, overlooking the bay, and the old observatory portion is all marble and brass, 19th century elegance. I got married there and the reception was great (band, catered dinner, and the 36 inch refractor was available for guest viewing).
The road to Lick from San Jose is a very twisty 19 miles. The mules, originally used to haul material there, wouldn't go up more than a six degree incline, so it's switchback city. This also makes it a popular road for bicyclists. I used to be annoyed with them, since I had to go there semi-regularly for work and often drove while sleepy. I imagined I'd come around a corner and have a tired rider at zero speed in the middle of the lane. They paid me back though one time. I was sitting in the dining room eating breakfast one afternoon, and these two riders and a car pulled up. The car driver switched off to ride a bike, and she stepped in front of the window and stripped out of all her clothes while the milk dripped off my spoon, caught halfway to my mouth. Good times.
Lick Observatory (Score:4, Funny)
Especially when there's so many better jokes. Like, did you ever come out in the winter to see some guy with his tongue stuck to the sign, going "I thought they were inthructionth!"
You also don't mention what the road to Lick is paved with. Somehow I doubt it's good intentions.
Re:Equation constraints (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Quantify ??? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is old news. (Score:5, Funny)
Hey! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hey! (Score:3, Funny)
Chip H.
Constraints on where they can afford to live! (Score:3, Funny)
At an estimated cost of 3 cents per kilowatt/hour, that would put the total cost at $8.3 billion trillion trillion, which is more than the Galactic Lending Limit.
Gee... (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah... that would have been a real loss.
(Yes folks, I'm just that bitter.)
Re:Gee... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Gee... (Score:2)
Re:Gee... (Score:5, Funny)
Nevermind extinct!... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Nevermind extinct!... (Score:2)
Just a thought.
Re:Gee... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Gee... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Gee... (Score:2)
Re:Gee... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Gee... (Score:3, Funny)
Chainsaw? You can bring lethal amounts of drugs to my house. My wife and I will give you our solemn word that we will overdose on them after you leave.
(The LD50 for marijuana is somewhere around 10 g/kg, and my wife and I are each about 80 kg, to give you an idea of how much to bring.)
Give Me The Stars (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Give Me The Stars (Score:2)
"There are no magnetars close enough to worry about, however, Gaensler and two other astronomers told SPACE.com."
-S
Re:Give Me The Stars (Score:5, Funny)
You should be a numerologist. You know, those people who ask you when you were born, and you answer "uuh... 4th of january, 1972", and they say "well, if you add 72 and 19, that makes 91 and you add 4 and 1, that makes five, and five plus 9 plus one gives you 96, modulus three, that's THREE!!!
THE HOLY TRINITY!!!
You are the chosen one, my son.
**ding**
Times up, that'll be $29.99 dear, my assistant will take your fee out front no cheques, only cash please. You can ask her for a receipt too. Thank you, come again!
Magnetars.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Oh, and check out the New Scientist [newscientist.com] article.
Re:Magnetars.. (Score:2)
We are quite sure that 3.6 million solar masses are in an extremely compact region, so small that if it were multiple objects, they would very quickly collide and merge into one. Here's the observational evidence [mpe.mpg.de]. Note that some of the data is projected into the future.
Faintly heard by SETI (Score:5, Funny)
"Damn you, you bloody baboon!"
Re:Faintly heard by SETI (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Faintly heard by SETI (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Faintly heard by SETI (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Faintly heard by SETI (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.banishedsouls.org/635850d13f/Dynamite_
Re:Faintly heard by SETI (Score:3, Funny)
1. Whoops.
2. What does this button do?
3.
I'm sorry I can't think of any more, but I'm sure that someone around here has saved up a similar list for just such an occasion.
Re:Faintly heard by SETI (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Faintly heard by SETI (Score:5, Funny)
D'oh!
Re:Faintly heard by SETI (Score:2)
Re:Faintly heard by SETI (Score:3, Interesting)
Breaking news! (Score:2)
Seriously, this has to be the most bizzare astronomy story tagline I've ever read. I figured this was the submitter's quote, or possibly the article writer - nope, it was from one of the physicists.
Re:Breaking news! (Score:3, Informative)
Seriously, this has to be the most bizzare astronomy story tagline I've ever read. I figured this was the submitter's quote, or possibly the article writer - nope, it was from one of the physicists.
Then you didn't read the New Scientist [newscientist.com] article which had this gem:
But Christopher Thompson, an astrophysicist at the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Physics, says that may not be so. The neutron star in question is rare m
Re:Breaking news! (Score:4, Informative)
That's why YANAPOAPOA. I can imagine the interview.
"If you were 160,000 kilometers from this black hole... we'll, you'd be in space, so you'd be dead! So don't go there!"
Magnetic fields are difficult to characterize. What are you going to do, tell people the field is 1000000000000 Tesla? (Yawn, what's a Tesla?) You can't compare magnetic fields to hens eggs or Libraries of Congress. The only thing you can really do is compare them to a field strength that people are intuitively familiar with- like a refrigerator magnet's field, an MRI field, or a field sufficient to wipe magnetic cards. Refrigerator magnets and MRIs come in a variety of field strengths. Plus, smartasses would make comments about refrigerators and magnetic imaging machines in space.
Re:Breaking news! (Score:4, Informative)
Seriously, this has to be the most bizzare astronomy story tagline I've ever read. I figured this was the submitter's quote, or possibly the article writer - nope, it was from one of the physicists.
Why is it bizarre? When I read it I understood what he meant and why he said it. Light years are big. For anything ten light years distant to have a measurable effect on the Earth is pretty amazing!
The radiation intensity at the surface of the Sun is 63,000,000 watts per square meter. (Your 10 km makes no real difference.) The intensity 10 light years (10^17 m) away from a 10^40 watt source would be approx. 100,000 watts per square meter. So you'd have to be 25 solar radii away from the Sun for its radiation intensity to be equivalent to this magnetar if it were ten light years distant. (For comparison, mercury orbits at about 86 solar radii.) Nitpickers may note that the Sun is mostly radiating UV through IR, and the magnetar's energy is brief and in the gamma ray spectrum, but this is still impressive.
Science by Press Release (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Science by Press Release (Score:3, Funny)
Pssh. The Millineum Falcon could reach that in no time!
Re:Science by Press Release (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Science by Press Release (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Science by Press Release (Score:5, Interesting)
I couldn't agree more. There are only 10 stars [wisc.edu] within 10 light years of us -- one trinary, two doubles and three individual stars. None of them are anywhere near being potential supernovae. The BBC sensationalism was pointless and misleading.
The actual quote from which that comment was derived was probably the one in the New Scientist article:
Assuming this is correct, the BBC journalist seems to have taken an off-hand comment and put it into an unreleated and meaningless context.
Re:Science by Press Release (Score:2)
Re:Science by Press Release (Score:2)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsec [wikipedia.org]
More Informative (Score:5, Informative)
Re:More Informative (Score:3, Interesting)
was 160,000 kilometers away.
Hooray Atmosphere... (Score:4, Funny)
ps. It happened in August 1998. Back then it was SGR1900+14. Apparently a weaker event, but it knocked our socks off back then.
Disaster Area (Score:5, Funny)
Trillion Trillion Trillion? (Score:3, Funny)
One calculation has the giant flare on SGR 1806-20 unleashing about 10,000 trillion trillion trillion watts.
Very impressive but as reading those consecutive huge "units", I just had to:
Dr Evil: I'll hold the world ransom for.....
1 Hundread, Billion, Trillion TRiLLion TRILLION Dollars! *pinky*
Re:Trillion Trillion Trillion? (Score:2)
I need that in measurements I can understand. What is that in Pentium 4's?
Screw that (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Trillion Trillion Trillion? (Score:3, Interesting)
GRBs? (Score:2)
Just FYI, GRBs are extremely short (on the order of minutes) events that release huge amounts of gamma rays. There are many different types of these GRBs, some lasting longer than others, some related to quasars, but they are still quite a mystery.
Dang! Starting Fresh Would Be Fun! (Score:4, Funny)
had the explosion been within 10 light years of us, it "would possibly have triggered a mass extinction."
Dang! Extinction has an upside -- it would be nice to start over and ditch the red-state, blue-state stuff and perhaps come out better for starting anew. Maybe the next batch of primordial ooze will grow up smarter than us, and perhaps along the way find something less verbose than XML in the process!
Don't panic... (Score:4, Funny)
I don't get it... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:I don't get it... (Score:2)
Re:I don't get it... (Score:2, Informative)
No wonder... (Score:2)
How's this news? (Score:3, Funny)
Who to blame? (Score:3, Funny)
And it still would be George Bush's fault, right?
Mass extintion? (Score:4, Funny)
This is a once-in-a-lifetime event
I bet the aliens who lived less than 10 light-years from there couldn't possibly deny what you just said.
Don't tell me that was any meteor shower! (Score:3, Funny)
Awesome writeup of the effects... (Score:3, Interesting)
Bush and SETI (Score:3, Funny)
Raw reports of the burst (Score:5, Informative)
This is a series of emails that discuss the burst. Interesting posts include the following:
There were a series of small bursts observed before the big one, but no one seems to have realized that they were precursors until after the big one arrived. "During 21 December more than 30 SGR-like bursts were detected by Konus-Wind and Helicon-Coronas-F" satellites.
The burst was detected by the Mars Odyssey spacecraft. "A very preliminary analysis indicates that the arrival time at Odyssey is indeed consistent with an arrival direction from SGR1806-20."
There is also discussion of an Earth-orbiting satellite that did not have a direct view of the flare; however, it picked up a faint echo 7.70 seconds after everyone else saw it. "This value corresponds exactly to burst travelling time from the Wind to the Moon and back to the Coronas-F."
Finally, serendipious observations were made by spacecraft whose primary mission is solar observation. "The SGR was 5 degrees from RHESSI's pointing axis which was directed toward the Sun."
Re:Pffft... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Pffft... (Score:2)
Re:Pffft... (Score:2, Informative)
It depends on your frame of reference. IIRC, from the viewpoint of the gamma ray photons themselves, there was no delay at all between the time of the starquake and reaching earth.
Re:Pffft... (Score:2)
Pretty lame, I know.
Re:Pffft... (Score:2)
Re:Excuse me but... (Score:5, Informative)
Considering that it takes 8 mins for light from the sun to reach Earth, I think your calculations are a bit off.
365 days x 24 hours x 60 mins = 525600 mins/year
525600 mins/year x 10 years = 5256000 mins
5256000 mins / 8 mins = 6.57x10^6 times
Therefore 10 light years is actually 6.57x10^6 times the distance from us to the sun.
QED
Re:Excuse me but... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Excuse me but... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Excuse me but... (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.google.com/search?q=astronomical+units
1 light year = 63 239.6717 Astronomical Units
Re:50,000 light years = 50,000 years? (Score:2)
Basically, yes. Given the standard of a year as it is now, this event occurred 50,000 years ago (give or take a few minutes) and we're just now seeing it.
Re:50,000 light years = 50,000 years? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:This is evidence of the Death Star (Score:2, Funny)
A still hopefull Star Wars fan.
Re:Aliens (Score:2)
Re:WRONG (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah, excuse me, big science nit-picker tonight.
Re:Classical vs. Quantum physics... (Score:4, Informative)
A spinning neutron star that's charged on one side more than another due to gravity pulling electrons around, would induce a magnetic field. Probably a damn strong one too, seeing the forces involved.