Moment magnitude scale being constants. For instance, formula_23 depends on rupture speed; it is close to 1 for regular earthquakes but much smaller for slower earthquakes such as tsunami earthquakes and slow earthquakes. Two earthquakes with identical formula_17 but different formula_23 or formula_22 would have radiated different formula_27. Because formula_27 and formula_17 are fundamentally independent properties of an earthquake source, and since formula_27 can now be computed more directly and robustly than in the 1970s, introducing a separate magnitude associated to radiated energy was warranted. Choy and Boatwright defined in 1995 the "energy magnitude" where formula_27 is in J (N·m). Assuming the values
Magnitude (astronomy) by astronomers are: The difference between these concepts can be seen by comparing two stars. Betelgeuse (apparent magnitude 0.5, absolute magnitude −5.8) appears slightly dimmer in the sky than Alpha Centauri (apparent magnitude 0.0, absolute magnitude 4.4) even though it emits thousands of times more light, because Betelgeuse is much farther away. Under the modern logarithmic magnitude scale, two objects, one of which is used as a reference or baseline, whose intensities (brightnesses) measured from Earth in units of power per unit area (such as watts per square metre, W m) are and , will have magnitudes and related by