# hypothetical: "Magnetar" neutron star appears 10 light years from earth.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-magnetar-neutron-star-appears-10-light-years-from-earth/690140>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [June 5, 2014, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-magnetar-neutron-star-appears-10-light-years-from-earth/690140 "2014-06-05T17:53:33Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Sicks\_Ate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Sicks\_Ate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sicks_Ate)\
**Post date:** [June 5, 2014, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-magnetar-neutron-star-appears-10-light-years-from-earth/690140/1 "2014-06-05T17:53:33Z")

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Do we notice anything different on a day-to-day basis?

If it releases a gamma ray burst like [this star did](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SGR_1806-20), what does the end of the world look like?

ETA: What if there actually was one there the whole time? Would it have changed how life on earth developed?

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**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\
**Post date:** [June 5, 2014, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-magnetar-neutron-star-appears-10-light-years-from-earth/690140/2 "2014-06-05T18:45:10Z")

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> [@Sicks\_Ate](#):
>
> Do we notice anything different on a day-to-day basis?
> 
> If it releases a gamma ray burst like [this star did](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SGR_1806-20), what does the end of the world look like?
> 
> ETA: What if there actually was one there the whole time? Would it have changed how life on earth developed?

I would think life wouldn’t have developed if the Earth was getting blasted by gamma radiation.

Or there would be a marked increase in incidents of “Hulkism”.

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**Author:** ![Sicks\_Ate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Sicks\_Ate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sicks_Ate)\
**Post date:** [June 5, 2014, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-magnetar-neutron-star-appears-10-light-years-from-earth/690140/3 "2014-06-05T18:48:44Z")

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> [@msmith537](#):
>
> I would think life wouldn’t have developed if the Earth was getting blasted by gamma radiation.
> 
> Or there would be a marked increase in incidents of “Hulkism”.

I may have read it wrong; my understanding was that there was a constant emission of radiation, but the very powerful burst was much stronger than the usual amount.

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**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\
**Post date:** [June 5, 2014, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-magnetar-neutron-star-appears-10-light-years-from-earth/690140/4 "2014-06-05T19:52:01Z")

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The radiation that’s emitted constantly wouldn’t be much of a threat to us from 10 light years away. What’s a concern are the bursts of energy.

Magnetars are only active in this sense for a short time (Wikipedia says 10,000 years) so having one nearby would mean some disastrous extinction-level events in the short-term, but 10,000 years is a blink of an eye in geologic/evolutionary terms. The magnetar wouldn’t be all that different from the extinction of the dinosaurs - a single event that would affect life by wiping out many species and allowing the survivors to fill now-empty niches, but not a long-term selective pressure.