Still alive...

A flash of radiation on 27 December 2005 was so powerful that it bounced off the Moon and lit up the Earth's atmosphere, 'rocking' the Milky Way. One calculation has the giant flare on SGR 1806-20 unleashing about 10,000 trillion trillion trillion watts.
The blast occurred on the surface of an exotic kind of star - a super-magnetic neutron.
Had this happened within 10 light-years of us, it would have severely damaged our atmosphere and would possibly have triggered a mass extinction... Luckily, it was about 50,000 light-years from Earth.
Most of you were probably none the wiser!

Comments
Sign in or get an account to comment.