NASA Satellite Blinded By 'Biggest Ever Star Explosion Seen In Space'

Telegraph:

The space agency's orbiting Swift observatory was overwhelmed by glare from the eruption, called a gamma-ray burst.

Read the whole story: Telegraph

Comments

[hackits]

03:14 PM on 07/20/2010

Everyone needs to realize, stars collapsing and exploding like this happen all of the time.

Taking into consideration that these xrays spew out of the poles in narrow columns from black holes, it is only by chance we saw this event, and more that likely these events are happing all of the time, we just are not seeing the xray bursts because they are not pointed at our instruments.

"Biggest Ever" Who said this? Yellow journalism at its finest.

[hackits]

03:39 PM on 07/20/2010

Sorry, I meant to say: "stars collapsing and exploding like this have and will continue to happen. There is nothing unique about this event other than that we happened to catch it with our instruments. Which is really cool, since this is just another data point in the very limited statistics associated with cosmological events.

[hemnebob]

08:50 AM on 07/20/2010

so when will we see the effects?
is it like a solar flare?
for whatever its worth, i hope it infects us all and make us just a
bit nicer everyday...no, i want super powers...yep, i hope it infects
us all and I get super powers.

yeah...
nice.

[fnordlord]

04:26 PM on 07/19/2010

A message that took 5 billion years to get here.

All of this for Glenn Beck.

[J0E1]

03:05 PM on 07/19/2010

There is no other explanation except that God was angry about something and that poor star felt his wrath.

[amdezurik]

03:13 PM on 07/19/2010

maybe his iPhone 4 kept dropping calls...

[flashblitzen]

04:27 PM on 07/19/2010

Exactly but what troubles me is that the earth was created only 6000 years ago. I'm so confused by my bible.

[hemnebob]

08:52 AM on 07/20/2010

; •)

[Valda DeDieu]

02:54 PM on 07/19/2010

Wow...Universe -- keep 'em coming...

[Zofomofo]

02:23 PM on 07/19/2010

Size doesn't matter.

[hackits]

03:05 PM on 07/20/2010

Read what the scientists working on this mission have said. They don't mention anything about size, mass, big or small.

[Zofomofo]

04:45 PM on 07/20/2010

uhh, seriously? Whooosh! (the sound of my hand flying over my head.)

[Quasi Libertarian]

12:41 PM on 07/19/2010

Since NASA is now the National Arab Self-Awarenss Administration, i would be willing to wager that they had the sensor device pointed towards Earth and merely caught a suicide-bomber blowing up something and since it was so close it just looks bigger up close.....

False Alarm

[mech126]

04:11 PM on 07/19/2010

Not funny.....

[Quasi Libertarian]

07:33 PM on 07/19/2010

You are correct...It isn't funny. Not one bit nor was it intended to be. I was making a parody of the current sad state of NASA...

Had Colbert or Jon Stewart said this, the Left would have thought it was a real knee-slapper.

[No1 ILoveLucyFan]

12:30 PM on 07/19/2010

Lemme guess, the gamma rays will get here on December 20, 2012...let the apocalypse-is-coming-junkies have their day...

[nanderson65]

12:46 AM on 07/19/2010

When the star burst it made contact with the Earth. The intense light was so inspiring all the satellite could stand there with its mouth open and stammer... 'They should have sent a kaleidoscope..."

[hackits]

02:31 PM on 07/18/2010

Its not the biggest either! Sheesh! It is the brightest!

Is this how journalism works these days!

[Scent]

01:24 PM on 07/19/2010

Ummmmm - maybe You want to rethink that.

It happened when our sun wasn't even formed - i.e. when the universe was so young those things did not happen any day.

PLUS it is FIVE BILLION LIGHTYEARS OUT. - In case You didn't get that part. As light - and all other rays - become smaller to the square of the distance that means The intensity right where it happpened was 25 billion billion - that woud by 25 quintillion or 25.000.000.000.000.000.000 times the intensity measured here. It is by far the highest intensity ever measured AND it is farther away from earth than any measurement to date. - Or in layman's terms: it is the biggest ever measured BY FAR.

You could NOT say that the brightest means it was the biggest, You are right on that one. But add the distance and You will have to try VERY hard to find a bigger one unless You find a way to catch the big bang.

[hackits]

03:02 PM on 07/20/2010

Dude I am an astrophysicist.

In physics "biggest" is not the same as "brightest". Also, the lead scientist didn't say biggest, he said brightest, which means intensity not mass (although the two are proportionally related). The semantics are incorrect and have resulted in headlines like, "Biggest Ever Star Explosion". Which is completely false and the scientists for the mission did even say one of those words! Yellow journalism in its finest.

The headline is incorrect for two reasons:

1) What the satellite measured was a gamma ray burst followed by an xray burst from a black hole (and yes, this happened well before our sun was born). This radiation is emitted out of the poles through narrow columns. It is only a matter of chance that this black hole was pointing its narrow jet at us to see. Taking this fact into consideration, there are likely many more black holes just like this, pointing in directions we will never see. Therefore, the "biggest ever" is more than likely incorrect.

2) There are super massive black holes much more massive than this one theoretically spewing the same more powerful jets. We can see these acreting giants but we do not see their jets. Therefore, the "biggest" is also incorrect.

Just read what the lead scientists have said and ignore HPs yellow press.

Also, "It happened when our sun wasn't even formed - i.e. when the universe was so young those things did not happen any day. " This is not correct.

[hackits]

03:08 PM on 07/20/2010

Your 1/r2 argument is incorrect. The xrays do not spread out isotropically, only out of a narrow column.

[hackits]

12:58 PM on 07/18/2010

THIS HEADLINE IS FACTUALLY INCORRECT!

Please refer to the original headline:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/7893771/Nasa-satellite-blinded-by-biggest-ever-star-explosion-seen-in-space.html

"Biggest Ever" needs to be changed to "Biggest Ever Seen".

This is a HUGE difference to the laymen.

Thankfully, after my inquiry with the telegraph.co.uk, they changed their headline. I didn't expect that to happen. :)

[hackits]

11:34 AM on 07/18/2010

This is what the lead scientist said:
"This gamma-ray burst is by far the brightest light source ever seen in X-ray wavelengths at cosmological distances."

This DOES NOT mean: "biggest ever star explosion in space" as HP and the telegraph.co.uk quotes it. Really? The biggest? Ever? And we just happened to see it? Yeah right! This is NOT what the lead scientist said.

The HPs and telegraph.co.uk editors must be out to lunch or nonexistent.

[JasonMcl]

07:46 AM on 07/18/2010

This eventually happens to all stars in one way or another. What is kind of scary about the situation is that every star eventually fails one way or another. Some turn into red giants and incinerate their nearest planets, some just die out and leave every planet in the system to slowly freeze solid in the darkness.

So anyway, whose up for some excessive alcohol consumption and unprotected sex with strangers while we wait?

[Whinger]

01:50 PM on 07/17/2010

There's a lot to be said in favor of a light sensitive lens!

[Tyrione]

12:44 PM on 07/17/2010

Your link title is just patently false. It's the largest solar flare of our Sun, we have recorded. That's it. Since our Sun is puny, by comparison, to billions of other stars just in the Milky Way Galaxy to proclaim what you did just for a click through is poor journalism.

[Netflyer]

03:26 PM on 07/17/2010

We reading the same blog? This wasn't about the Sun/Sol at all...
"Light from the flare-up, titled GRB 100621A, reached Earth on June 21 after it had travelled nearly halfway across the universe. " and not from 93 million miles away.

The title is directly from the UK Telegraph, check the provided link for the whole story... nothing to do with SOL...