Editing Magnetar (section)

=== 1979 discovery ===
On March 5, 1979, a few months after the successful dropping of [[Lander (spacecraft)|landers]] into the atmosphere of [[Venus]], the two uncrewed Soviet spaceprobes [[Venera 11]] and [[Venera 12|12]], then in [[heliocentric orbit]], were hit by a blast of gamma radiation at approximately 10:51 EST. This contact raised the radiation readings on both the probes from a normal 100 counts per second to over 200,000 counts a second in only a fraction of a millisecond.<ref name="journal"/>

Eleven seconds later, [[Helios (spacecraft)|Helios 2]], a [[NASA]] probe, itself in orbit around the [[Sun]], was saturated by the blast of radiation. It soon hit Venus, where the [[Pioneer Venus Orbiter]]'s detectors were overcome by the wave. Shortly thereafter the gamma rays inundated the detectors of three [[U.S. Department of Defense]] [[Vela (satellite)|Vela satellites]], the [[Prognoz (satellite)|Soviet Prognoz 7 satellite]], and the [[Einstein Observatory]], all orbiting Earth. Before exiting the [[Solar System]] the radiation was detected by the [[International Cometary Explorer|International Sun–Earth Explorer]] in [[halo orbit]].<ref name="journal"/>

This was the strongest wave of extra-solar gamma rays ever detected at over 100 times as intense as any previously known burst. Given the [[speed of light]] and its detection by several widely dispersed spacecraft, the source of the [[gamma radiation]] could be triangulated to within an accuracy of approximately 2 [[arcseconds]].<ref>{{cite journal
| title = Precise source location of the anomalous 1979 March 5 gamma-ray transient
| journal = The Astrophysical Journal
| volume = 255
|date=Apr 1982
| page = L45–L48
| doi = 10.1086/183766
| author = Cline, T. L., Desai, U. D., Teegarden, B. J., Evans, W. D., Klebesadel, R. W., Laros, J. G.
|bibcode = 1982ApJ...255L..45C
| hdl = 2060/19820012236
| hdl-access = free
}} {{open access}}</ref> The direction of the source corresponded with [[SGR 0525−66]], the remnant of a star that had exploded as a supernova around 3000 BCE.<ref name="journal2"/> It was in the [[Large Magellanic Cloud]] and the event was named [[GRB 790305b]], the first-observed SGR megaflare.