A Supernova In Red/Blue Plaid, Please

Snotnose writes "The New York Times is reporting that scientists have found a a supernova factory . From the article, scientists estimated that the cluster alone, which contains up to a million stars, probably produces a supernova once every two years. That is a rate 50 times higher than usual in entire galaxies. Stars explode in Earth's home galaxy, the Milky Way, only once in a century.. Sounds pretty awesome. "

Comments

Possible blackhole observatory

[phaetonic]

From what I remember in Astronomy class, the only known way blackholes are known to form are after a supernova explosion. This can make for an interesting study on blackholes.

Re:Possible blackhole observatory

[Michael Woodhams]

I don't think this is accurate.

Certainly it is a reasonable hypothesis that a very massive star might create a black hole when it supernovas. I don't know what the latest computer models say about it, nor do I know how reliable those models are believed to be - this stuff is hard to model right.

Merging neutron stars are also likely to form black holes, and a neutron start that was accreting mass from a companion star could also.

Our best evidence for black holes is for supermassive ones at the centers of galaxies. These would be the result of a long period of growth by swallowing stars. We can't know now where the original 'seed' black hole came from, but the vast majority of its mass did not come from a supernova.

(I have a PhD in astronomy, but haven't done any for 10 years.)

This looks like a job for Stupendous Man.