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."

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Shock and Awe

[farker haiku]

President Zarlak of the Kharyak Confederation:
For much of the last millenium, Ksharyak's defense has relied on the Cold War doctrines of deterrence and containment. In some cases, those strategies still apply, but new threats also require new thinking. Deterrence, the promise of massive retaliation against Solar Systems, means nothing, against shadowy, terrorist networks with no home planet or citizens to defend. Containment is not possible when unbalanced dictators with weapons of mass destruction can deliver those weapons on missiles or secretly provide them to terrorists' allies. Thus we have started a war plan that we call "Shock and Awe". We believe it is working. We believe that no group will again threaten the sovereignty of the Kharyak Confederation after this display. Even the bastard stepchildren of the universe are aware of our power now.

From the words of a flea bag in the far reaches of the universe:

"Of all exploding stars ever observed, this was the king," said Alex Filippenko, UC Berkeley astronomer and leader of the ground-based observations at the University of California's Lick Observatory in California and the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii. "We were astonished to see how bright it got, and how long it lasted."