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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."
We were having one fine black hoal in old Calcultta!
Will code for new sig.
Is there a time-lapse video of this somewhere? The article I read only had an artist's rendering. Or when they say "observed" are they just talking about measurements?
After being informed of this, President Bush was quoted as saying, "Can we get ourselves a bomb to do that?"
Great summary. Lots of informative links, accurate and intriguing summary of the article(s). No gratuitous inflammatory question.
Someone pinch me, I think I'm dreaming.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
They talk at the end about a star 7500 LY away that might "go supernova soon." It should probably be pointed out that it could have already gone supernova 6000 years ago and we'd not know about it.
I guess they should say "might see if it went supernova soon."
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
After 70 years of computer simulations and observations they failed to predict this new kind of supernova. Its interesting to read speculations about degenerate lepton gases, but arent they just hand-waving again? Just goes to show you the arrogance of physicists- they claim answers and grandiose Standard Theories, but are frequently revising them because they mis things like accelerating expansion and 150SM supernova.
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...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."
Your sig(k) has been stolen. There is a puff of smoke!
Big badaboom!
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Here's the NASA article about it.
u-bend
It's Berkeley, not Berkley.
"Now, THAT was an earth-shattering Ka-Boom!" - Marvin the Martian
Now that's an Extinction Level Event.
"Ooh! Aaah!" dead
Badgers, we don't need no stinking badgers! - UHF
From the article:
The discovery was made by Robert Quimby, a University of Texas graduate student, who was using a small robotic telescope at McDonald Observatory near Fort Davis, Tex., to troll for supernovasIt was a precursor bomb! Looks like someone's copying the Shofixti's tactics.
Does anybody know any resource that lists how most likely all the elements originated from stable baryons and electrons, including chains like element1->element2+element3 (fusion) -> element4 (fission) -> element5,element6 with estimates of conditions necessary for each transition to happen?
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
I mean, it's been like a few magnitudes smaller. Gimme about 500 sun masses and I create you something spectacular too!
Compared to this, the Tsar was the equivalent of an ant farting.
Then again, I'm glad it was. Just imagine...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
With massive stars (though not as massive as TFA discusses) the final collapse causes a shockwave that finally ignites a layer deep in the star which burns so hot and explosively that it blows the outside layers of the star off, giving us the nebula.
The leftover, however, continues with its collapse, as there's no long enough star left to run much fusion - especially of the heavier "ash" at the core, which may even be elements up to iron, which takes more energy to fuse than the fusion gives out in return, and thus is a "heat sink".
My question, based on this (admittedly faulty) memory, is two-fold:
To "Powerful Supernova May Be Related To Death", which I thought was a bit weird.
// MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
Should about 120 solar masses be maximal limit for a star size, because that is approximately the Eddington limit.
in the space.com article on this they mention that our own MilkyWay has a star about to go SuperMasive Nova at any time called Eta Carinae. Eta Carinae is about 7000 light years away so they say we are safe, but the Nova from last September eventually became brighter than it's own galaxy. So what i )BÇm wondering is even if we are safe from debris from this soon-to-be nova, what about an EMP from it?
Do we know that 200 solar mass stars can exist within the Eddington limit? To summarize, higher mass will increase the energy output of the star's fusion reactions, and there's a point where this can more than counter the force of gravity. How would a star exceed this? Are collisions or mass accretion from another object likely?
Slashdot, 240 million years behind the times.
(I should probably post this anonymously
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mechanics. So I'm volume of NetBSD questions, then THINKING ABOUT IT. documents like a already dead. IT is reformaated are just way over 486/66 with 8
+5, Troll
We'll likely never know how many populated worlds were destroyed from the gamma ray burst. But all life "nearby" would have been instantly killed.
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"Begs the question" actually means "assumes".
For example, the question, "Will we survive the blast from Eta Carinae's supernova event?" begs the question that Eta Carinae has had a supernova event. We don't actually know whether or not Eta Carinae has exploded, but the question here assumes that it has and moves on. Begging the question is considered a logical fallacy, because it assumes something without proving it, and then bases further reasoning on that unproven assumption.
You're thinking of "raising the question", as in, "the possibility of Eta Carinae exploding raises the question of whether or not we would survive the blast".
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
Robert Sawyer wrote a book based on the premise that Carinæ is about to light up and toast us.
George Lucas has taken a turn for the worst, exclaiming "I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened."
I'm so tired of people trying to outshout each other on most forums. When do the know-it-all's find time to learn anything new, anyway? Thanks for the warning, but all they can do is call me bad names (so what?) and toss F-bombs in garbled 1337. Plus, if you'd like more civility in the world, what better place to start than at home? I know this will gag the cynics, but "Do As Ye Would Be Done By" is powerful stuff if a critical mass is reached, I would suppose. Got my tinfoil dunce-cap in the event a Vibe/Shitstorm hits...
I further promise not to wander so far OT in future.
Ah! A TROLL