"It gave off more energy in 0.2 seconds than the Sun does in 100,000 to 200,000 years."

That quote comes from a front-page article of the New York Times about a burst of energy that came from a "magnetar" neutron star. NASA revealed yesterday that this December 27, 2004, burst of energy was the brightest every recorded by instruments, but since the energy came in the form of gamma rays--a type of radiation blocked by our atmosphere--it wasn't detectable on Earth (the blast was captured by satellites and other space craft).

Still, the immensity of this explosion should give us all pause to wonder about the Universe. The article reported that scientists don't really understand what causes the massive discharge of energy, but suggest it could be from sudden, intense shifts in the star's magnetic field, which is quadrillions of times more powerful than the earth's field. Hence the name "magnetar."

This star has about 50% more mass than our sun, but it's all compressed into a ball only a dozen or so miles wide! And it's spinning very fast; it makes a revolution every 7.5 seconds.

Unimpressed? The light from the very brief flare was brighter than all of the other stars in the Milky Way...combined.

So what happened to the star after such a monumental explosion? Nothing. It's still there, and still spinning at that same rate.