On November 3rd, at least six spacecraft picked up a powerful burst of gamma rays coming from an area in Ursa Major in the general direction of M81 and M82, two relatively large galaxies located about 12 million light-years away. Most of the flare's energy was packed into a pulse lasting just one-tenth of a second. If the burst originated in M81 or M82, the total energy and spectrum closely resemble the December 2004 giant flare from SGR 1806–20.
...taken together these two flares suggest that such blasts occur once every few decades in a large spiral galaxy such as the Milky Way.
