Space Telescope Catches Monster Flare 158
gollum123 writes, "NASA's Swift satellite has seen a giant flare explode from a nearby star. Our sun also flares when twisted magnetic field lines in the solar atmosphere suddenly snap — but this was on a far larger scale, perhaps 100 million times as strong. The energy released by the explosion on II Pegasi was equivalent to about 50 quintillion atomic bombs. If the Sun were ever to produce such an outburst, it would almost certainly cause a mass extinction on Earth. II Pegasi is a binary system 135 light-years from Earth in the constellation Pegasus. Its two stars are close, only a few stellar radii apart; as a result, tidal forces cause both stars to spin quickly, rotating in lockstep once in seven days compared to the Sun's 28-day rotation period. Fast rotation is thought to be conducive to strong stellar flares."
Reported on Election Day, Coincidence? (Score:5, Funny)
I turn the page on the excuse sheet. "COSMIC SOLAR FLARES" stares out at me. I'd better read up on that. Two minutes later
I'm ready to answer the phone.
"Hello?" I say.
The Voting machines are messed up, We can't vote!!!
"Ah, yes. Well, there's been some cosmic solar activity this morning, it always disrupts electronics..." I say, sweet as a sugar pie.
"Huh? But I my friends could vote in Itasca County"
"Yes, that's entirely possible, cosmic solar activity is very unpredictable in it's effects. Why just a few years ago, we had some votes just dissappear from a guys total during the middle of a recount!"
Re:Reported on Election Day, Coincidence? (Score:5, Funny)
Too bad the mods don't understand BOFH excuse calendar humor. But you did leave off the part where voters for the wrong party have their opinions corrected via an ingeneously improvised "patch" to the voting machine involving a cattle prod....
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1) The article is in regard to a large stellar flare, not a solar one. Currently the Sun is at solar minimum, and while large solar activity can occur at this time of the cycle, such activity is rare. For those that are interested, the National Solar Observatory [nso.edu] has images of the current solar activity, and a current space weather report is available from the Space Environment Center [noaa.gov]. Besides all of that, the fl
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Yeah no kidding! It turned the perfectly usable possessive ITS into the ridiculous IT IS!
WMD? (Score:1, Funny)
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Re:WMD? (Score:5, Insightful)
I find blanket statements like "More powerful than x nuclear bombs," to be infuriatingly alarmist. Give me a raw tonnage number any day. THAT interests me much more.
(Of course, I suppose the extra five zero's one might potentially add here aren't that significant, as it is probably still enough power either way to blow up the Earth.)
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Re:WMD? (Score:5, Funny)
DM: "you have been killed by the explosion of one billion nuclear bombs."
You: "Russian or Korean?"
One down, billions to go (Score:5, Funny)
Mass extinction? (Score:5, Funny)
What if we all ran inside real quick?
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Re:Mass extinction? (Score:5, Funny)
From the HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy (movie version):
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Re:Mass extinction? (Score:4, Funny)
Personally I find it amusing because if you actually are nuked, the only thing that ducking and covering will accomplish is that your head will be very close to the proper location to kiss your ass goodbye.
Excellent send-up of this concept in the South Park episode Volcano (Season 1.)
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Thing is, "duck and cover" was never meant to save lives at ground zero. You're absolutely right, anyone within 5 miles of a decent sized nuke will more than likely be vaporized or flattened by the concussion. However, anyone THAT close also won't have much of a chance to "avoid looking at the flash", let alone try to find a place to hide, since the blast will hit them before they even have a chance to think "oh shit
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As the article states, the fact that the sun is "middle-aged" means that such flares are less likely but surely they must still happen occasionally over the course of hundreds of millions of years?
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If you want to know more about the II Pegasi flare, the paper is called Nonthermal Hard X-ray Emission and Iron Kalpha Emission from a Superflare on II Pegasi [arxiv.org]
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i.e. flares which are 1. form our sun and 2. far bigger than the usual or even occasional flares
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OK, so maybe I AM middle aged, and I don't flare as often as I used to. I can still flare pretty much whenever I want to, and I flare quite nicely, thank you. I just need a little longer between flares than I did when I was in my 20,000,000s.
The Sun
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Somebody had to say it but... (Score:1)
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OOOoooh. (Score:1)
Here it is (Score:1)
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Working....
Working.....
Working......
Process is terminated due to StackOverflowException.
Giant Solar Flare ASCII Art (Score:5, Funny)
O o
After Explosion:
O o===
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http://space.mit.edu/ASC/analysis/IIPeg/IIPeg.html [mit.edu]
the sun: a weapon of mass extinction (Score:5, Funny)
My fellow Americans, our only option is clear: We need to preemptively invade the sun.
Preemptive? Hell.... (Score:2)
Preemptive? It's just striking back, is all. How much longer do we have to go on with them bombarding us with deadly radiation and killing us??!?!
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KFG
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KFG
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But I'm going to have to strongly oppose any plan that uses nukular weapons in space. I'm strongly opposed to the possibility of introducing nukular fallout in space.
Walk outside at night (Score:2)
Come to think of it, the same is true during daytime.
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Coal (Score:2)
We regret to inform you Mr. President that the invasion plans will have to be put on hold as we are experiencing extreme development problems with the fleet of coal powered inter planetary invasion shuttles Defense Secretary Rumsfeld insisted we develop to carry the invasion force. We would furthermore like to reiterate our previous advice that persuade Mr. Rumsfeld to consider the use of a more conventional power source.
R
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ObQuote Futurama (Score:1)
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The logistics of engaging in an invasion of the Sun without burning up are mind-numbingly astronomical. But I suppose if it was all done at night, our troops would be safe.
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The logistics of engaging in an invasion of the Sun without burning up are mind-numbingly astronomical.
Just land in the night ...
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Why do we even use the term 'horsepower'?
Is that to further humiliate horses?
The space-shuttle rockets have 20 million horsepower.
Is there any point in still comparing it... to the horses?
Any chance of going back to using rockets with horses, trying to keep track of how many we're gonna need?
"Hey, horse. There's a rocket engine that broke down. Can you get 20 million friends together really fast?"
So where is the link to the picture in the Article (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:So where is the link to the picture in the Arti (Score:3, Informative)
From the article...
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Are you happy?
What, you want before and after? Fine, here.
Before:
After: .
You did notice this is over a hundred light years away right?
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Anyone call Karl Rove yet? (Score:4, Funny)
IANAS (I am not a scientist) (Score:1)
This is just my unqualified, layman's opinion, but I agree.
Forget global warming... (Score:2)
(BTW, There are no escape exits [google.com]. Have a nice day!)
It wasn't a solar flare... (Score:2)
She just wasn't happy with parting the Red Sea.
Uh, this is news . . . HOW? (Score:2, Informative)
I'm sure it was news last year, though!
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Major flare up... (Score:1, Offtopic)
A Zero Point module on Sony Battery Recall List? (Score:1, Offtopic)
Someone forget to put SG-Atlantis on the notification list?
Re:A Zero Point module on Sony Battery Recall List (Score:1)
Re:A Zero Point module on Sony Battery Recall List (Score:2)
Informative? I hope to god I find that guy in meta. Meta-moderation needs a "nominate for public humiliation" button.
Old news (Score:5, Funny)
Images and more Information (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/swift/bursts/mo
I really wish slashdot would just link the real news item instead of the crappy ones it always seems to find. There wasn't even an image on the one they linked.
Re:Images and more Information (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, but what KIND of atomic bomb? (Score:2)
OK, so that's a lot, but are we talking 50 quintillion North Korean bombs, or 50 quintillion Really Big Cold War Nation-State Smashers? The point is, analogies like that certainly convey the notion of "A Whole Lot Of Energy," but are really not very meaningful. Not like Libraries of Congress or end-to-end hanging chads that you can really get your head around.
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which is exatly what this analogy are supposed to do.
If you used a specific refrence, it wouldn't be an analogy, would it? it would also be useless to the target audience of the article.
People have seen picturs of atomic blasts, so it helps them understand.
personally, I would like it compared how much energy are sun has over time.
Like "It's the equivilent of get 5 years work of sunlight in 1 second!"
Or "its the quivilent of b
heres some pics (Score:1)
None are the one FTA, but it probably looks like these, only shaped like some sort of a monster.
quintillion? (Score:2)
BTW if a quintillion is 10^18, it's not that much. Our Sun puts out every second about 10^11 equivalent megatons of energy 50 x 10^18 is only 50 (US) billion times as much.
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I guess you would even consider a supernova not worthwhile...
How much flare? (Score:5, Funny)
Now about those TPS reports...
Collision (Score:1)
Re:Collision (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.gulker.com/2006/04/09.html [gulker.com]
Keep in mind how far away from the Sun the Earth is in that image.
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not for the people on the planet!
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If the camera is in the vicinity of Mars' orbit then Earth is actually closer to the camera than to the sun. Either way, this shot might make the Earth look small, but nowhere near as small as it SHOULD look compared to the sun.
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You can also consider that a considerable amount of the dark spot that is the Earth in the photograph is probably also cast shadow. I would think that the only way that the moon could be showing up in the image at all is if it's creating a void in the sunlight much, much larger than its true size.
None t
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I would think an article with "seen" in the title (Score:2)
You want a pretty pic from 135 light years away? (Score:2)
May I remind you of the very best photo we have of Pluto:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Pluto.jpg [wikipedia.org]
Re:You want a pretty pic from 135 light years away (Score:2)
I guess I was just disappointed as I was ready to see a cool picture based on the article description.
Swift song - AstroCappella (Score:1)
Extinction? (Score:1, Insightful)
Do they mean -
1. It would have caused mass extinction for sure
or
2. It would have caused mass extinction, if the solar flare was pointing to the earth ?
My point being, the flare is directional. If it was not pointing to earth and still could have caused extinction, then it could mean
Woah (Score:3, Funny)
Oblig: Office Space (not as good as BOFH Excuse ) (Score:1)
STAN
We need to talk. Do you know what this is about?
JOANNA
My, uh, flair.
STAN
Yeah. Or, uh, your lack thereof. I'm counting and I only see fifteen pieces. Let me ask you a question, Joanna.
JOANNA
Umm-hmm.
STAN
What do you think of a person who only does the bare minimum?
JOANNA
Huh. What do I think? Let me tell you what I think, Stan. If you want me to wear thirty-seven pieces of flair like your pretty boy Brian over there, then why don't you just make the minimum thirty-seve
I'll bite (Score:2)
Not a monster flare... (Score:2, Funny)
Arthur C. Clarke was right! (Score:2)
Dinosaurs..? (Score:2)
Original article (Score:2)
Poor description (Score:2)
when twisted magnetic field lines in the solar atmosphere suddenly snap
What next? Met office guy: - "Damn, I just broke an isobar!"
Less hyperbole and more science, please.
continuum between large flare and small nova? (Score:2)
spin cycle produces shitstorm (Score:2)
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Re:Hollywood (Score:4, Informative)
You mean something like this? [imdb.com]