Huge Gamma-ray Flares Mystify World's Astronomers

[n2doc]

The Crab Nebula has stunned astronomers by emitting an unprecedented blast of gamma rays, the highest-energy light in the Universe, from a small area of the famous nebula. The cause of the 12 April gamma-ray flare, which lasted for some six days, hitting levels 30 times higher than normal and varying at times from hour to hour, described at the Third Fermi Symposium in Rome, is a complete and total mystery. The Crab's recent outburst is more than five times more intense than any yet observed.

Nasa's Fermi space observatory is designed to measure only gamma rays, that emanate from the Universe's most extreme environments and violent processes. Since its launch nearly three years ago, Fermi has spotted three such outbursts, with the first two reported earlier this year at the American Astronomical Society meeting.

The Crab Nebula is composed mainly of the remnant of a supernova, which was seen on Earth to explode in the year 1054. At the core of the brilliantly coloured gas cloud is a pulsar - a rapidly spinning neutron star that emits radio waves which sweep past the Earth 30 times per second. But so far none of the nebula's known components can explain the signal Fermi sees, said Roger Blandford, director of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, US.

"The origin of these high-energy gamma rays has to be some other source," Blandford told BBC News."It takes about six years for light to cross the nebula, so it must be a very compact region in comparison to the size of the nebula that's producing these outbursts on the time scales of hours."

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http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2011/05/news-flash-huge-gamma-ray-flares-mystify-worlds-astronomers.html

[Poll_Blind]

1. That is as amazing as it is terrifying, at least on some level. I am still....

...astounded that on any given night, we can step outside and view the biggest show in all of the Universe, right above our heads.

PB

[crim son]

2. All of this is sooo beyond my understanding

but fascinating nonetheless.

[Mnemosyne]

3. Wonder what effect those will have on the marigolds? K&R for an interesting article, n/t

[yodermon]

4. that's it, we're done, this is clearly a precursor to the 5/21 re-jesus event

been fun y'all

[bananas]

5. Chernobyl, Fukushima, Praxis, ...

"The explosion of Praxis is loosely based on the Chernobyl disaster, one of several factors leading to the breakdown of the Soviet Union."
http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Praxis
http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Tech/Special/Praxis.html