Powerful Supernova May Be Related To Death Spasms of First Stars

necro81 writes "The New York Times is reporting on a discovery from a team of UC Berkley researchers, who may have discovered the brightest stellar explosion ever observed. Observations of the cataclysmic explosion of a 100- to 200-solar-mass star began last September, based on data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory. The researchers believe that the explosion is similar to the death spasms of the first stars in the universe. The super-massive star's collapse is believed to have been so energetic as to create unstable electron-positron pairs that tore the star apart before it could collapse into a black hole — seeding the universe with heavier elements."

Comments

Eta Carinae

[tiluki]

What is more impressive about this story is the footnote of similar activity recently exhibited by Eta Carinae - a much closer star to us (well, 7500 light years). To quote the BBC article http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6633609.stm:

Dave Pooley, at the University of California at Berkeley, said if Eta Carinae were to explode "it would be so bright that you would see it during the day, and you could even read a book by its light at night". Eta Carinae's death could be "the most spectacular star show in history." Is it just me, or does that sound a little bit too close...