Richter magnitude scale is about 7 and about 8.5 for formula_3. New techniques to avoid the saturation problem and to measure magnitudes rapidly for very large earthquakes are being developed. One of these is based on the long period P-wave; the other is based on a recently discovered channel wave. The energy release of an earthquake, which closely correlates to its destructive power, scales with the power of the shaking amplitude. Thus, a difference in magnitude of 1.0 is equivalent to a factor of 31.6 (formula_19) in the energy released; a difference in magnitude of 2.0 is equivalent to a factor of 1000
Magnitude (astronomy) been classified as "stars of the first magnitude". Magnitudes can also be calculated for objects far brighter than stars (such as the Sun and Moon), and for objects too faint for the human eye to see (such as Pluto). Often, only apparent magnitude is mentioned since it can be measured directly. Absolute magnitude can be calculated from apparent magnitude and distance from: This is known as the distance modulus, where is the distance to the star measured in parsecs, is the apparent magnitude, and is the absolute magnitude. If the line of sight between the object and observer is affected