BBC - Huge 'star-quake' rocks Milky Way

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4278005.stm

Astronomers say they have been stunned by the amount of energy released
in a star explosion on the far side of our galaxy, 50,000 light-years
away.

The flash of radiation on 27 December was so powerful that it bounced
off the Moon and lit up the Earth's atmosphere.

The blast occurred on the surface of an exotic kind of star - a
super-magnetic neutron star called SGR 1806-20.

If the explosion had been within just 10 light-years, Earth could have
suffered a mass extinction, it is said.

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