47th Mersenne Prime Found

On April 12th, the 47th known Mersenne prime, 242,643,801-1, a 12,837,064 digit number was found by Odd Magnar Strindmo from Melhus, Norway! This prime is the second largest known prime number, a "mere" 141,125 digits smaller than the Mersenne prime found last August.

Mersenne Primes where the subject of a comic from last May:
http://mrburkemath.blogspot.com/2008/05/mersenne.html


http://mersenne.org/

http://science.slashdot.org/story/09/06/13/2218226/47th-Mersenne-Prime-Confirmed