WOW... now this should remind us all how fragile life is.... and how at ANY moment all life on earth could cease to exist...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4278005.stm
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.""
One calculation has the giant flare on SGR 1806-20 unleashing about 10,000 trillion trillion trillion watts.
"This is a once-in-a-lifetime event. We have observed an object only 20km across, on the other side of our galaxy, releasing more energy in a 10th of a second than the Sun emits in 100,000 years," said Dr Fender.
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