Celestia Forums

I have just read about a maganetar gamma emission that occured in 1979. It was traced back to a nova remnant. The light from the nova arrived in 3000BC. I have tried to determine the identity of the remnant to find the distance, then speculate the outcome of a similar gamma emission closer to home.
Anyone have data?

mburley wrote:...a maganetar gamma emission that [was received] in 1979.

mburley wrote:The light from the nova arrived in 3000BC

Gamma rays are light, and light travels at a fixed velocity, c. One wavelength will not arrive before another. You may have misheard / misread the report. The nova probably happened ~3000 BC, but the light from it (all wavelengths) were detected (reached our Solar system) in 1979.

According to this link (.pdf), the 1979 event was designated SGR 0526–66.

And this paper (arXiv) calls it "the first SGR."

Thanks for the link to the magazine article. It was interesting. It reaffirmed what I had heard that the source was a nova remnant some 170000 lighyears distant. The light from which arrived in 3000BC. The point is, it was the resulting magnetar that is mysteriously burping gamma rays 5000 or so years after its creation. One would conclude that should a similar event happen in our region of the galaxy, within say 10000 lightyears, a bad day would be had by all.