Word: vela
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...only known evidence of earlier supernovas in the Milky Way are the pulsars they left behind. One of the closest to be detected is in the Gum nebula, which is in the constellation Vela and only 1,500 light years away. Thus, when the star that formed Gum exploded-some 10,000 to 20,000 years ago (an estimate derived from the current signal rate of the pulsar)-it probably flared up briefly in the sky as bright as a quarter-moon. It also may have showered the earth with enough dangerous radiation to have produced significant mutations in terrestrial...