Huge Supernova Baffles Scientists

Iddo Genuth writes "Scientists from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and San Diego State University have observed an explosion of a star 50 times larger than the sun. In what they call a 'first observation of its kind' the scientists were able to notice that most of the star's mass collapsed in on itself, resulting in a creation of a large black hole. While exploding stars, or 'supernovae,' aren't unprecedented, this star, which lay about 200 million light years away from earth and was million times brighter than the Sun, has exploded as a supernova at a much earlier date than the one predicted by astronomers."

Comments

It happens?

[mc1138]

Clearly all this proves is that we really don't know that much about what's going on in the universe.

Re:It happens?

[AaxelB]

Clearly all this proves is that we really don't know that much about what's going on in the universe.

Did you ever think we did? We're pretty damn clueless.

I think we would all do well to remember what Socrates (approximately, probably) said: "The only thing I know is that I know nothing at all."

Re:It happens?

[Mt._Honkey]

Clearly all this proves is that we really don't know that much about what's going on in the universe.

I'm getting tired these kinds of posts every time something unexpected is observed. Yes, this observation tells us that our knowledge is not perfect. However, these claims that every contradiction between experiment and theory means that scientists don't know very much aren't just wrong but irresponsible, because people believe them.

The vital point I need to make here is that our finite knowledge is not "all this proves". This proves that 50 solar mass stars can supernova before they shed their hydrogen atmospheres. Now we can take that new piece of knowledge and develop new and better theories about stellar evolution. To just throw are hands up and say "all this proves is that we don't know much" is to overlook a valuable opportunity to advance science.

Re:It happens?

[AlecC]

But that is based on the assumption that the CMB is, indeed, the relic of the Big Bang, which is one of the assumptions referenced. And that the Hubble shift is, indeed, caused by the expansion of the Universe. Of course, I do not really doubt this, but these are still very indirect deductions. One could imagine a measurement which cast doubt on all of them - e.g. speed of light changing with time, in which case the whole Universe would probably need to be rescaled.

Many possibilities.

[jd]

One is that this was a binary system, that a second star was behind the first at the time of the "pre-supernova" photo, and that they collided. Remember, they have very few photographs, are not using any data from space telescopes like SWIFT, and are therefore filling in the blanks.

We can assume that star evolution is moderately well-understood (though not completely), so if what they think is the input is inconsistent with what they know is the output, the chances are really good that the input is wrong, especially with such little data.

Another possibility. In order to get a supernova, as TFA notes, you need iron at the core of the star. There is no requirement that the iron be formed by the star, so there is no requirement that the star be at a stage in its evolution to have formed said iron. I don't know how large a rocky planet can get, but it's entirely possible to theorize of a bloody massive exoplanet made largely of iron dive-bombing a star. Depending on how close to critical the star is, it's possible to imagine such a strike giving a supermassive star severe indigestion.

There again, they may have miscalculated the distance. I believe they rely on spectral analysis to determine the relative velocity of a star and use that to infer distance, as you can't use parallax at those kinds of distances. However, if the star was getting close to critical, the spectral patterns can't necessarily be assumed to follow those of stars in better health. Further, if the star's movement was not primarily due to the expansion of space, the measured Doppler shift won't be directionally proportional to distance.

These reasons have probably been gone through and either discarded, laughed at, or even maybe put in the "improbable but should be looked at" pile, but it's very reasonable to assume the astronomers themselves have come up with many, many more possibilities, all of which could be valid based on what little is known.

And that's just it. Very little is known, unless one of the rapid-reaction space telescopes detected the explosion and took a look. TFA makes no mention of such data, but given the volume they process maybe that information hasn't been looked at yet. But I suspect the mystery won't be solvable unless such extra data does exist.

My thoughts exactly

[mangu]

I'm getting tired these kinds of posts every time something unexpected is observed

Me too. Those posts show nothing but the envy of people who wished they understood science, but do not have the needed energy and intelligence to study the necessary mathematics.

Their escape mechanism is to pretend no one really understand science. They think they don't look so stupid if they can pretend everybody is as stupid as they are.

I think the perfect answer to that kind of thinking was given by Isaac Asimov in an essay named "The Relativity of Wrong". In that article, Asimov shows that the difference between a flat earth and a spherical earth is much bigger than the difference between a spherical earth and the true shape of the earth. Although people who thought the earth was spherical were wrong, they were much *less* wrong than people who thought the earth was flat.

Science converges asymptotically to the truth. Even if scientists can never be absolutely certain of the truth, they are always getting nearer to absolute truth.

most people who've studied science disagree

[Trepidity]

Most scientists don't understand science, outside their tiny provincial field; I'm a scientist so I see this all the time. Most have very fairy-tale notions of the scientific method and knowledge production in particular.

You might want to read up on some of the people (scientists especially) who have taken the time to understand how science works, and written on the philosophy and sociology of science.

In particular, it is certainly not true that science converges asymptotically to the truth. It oven diverges substantially, sometimes for hundreds of years, before entire fields (like "racial hygiene") are thrown out as failed experiments. We're currently in the middle of a debate over whether string theory should be placed in that dustbin or not, for example.