Distant Supernova Is the Most Powerful Ever Detected (osu.edu)

schwit1 writes: Newly published research into a supernova under observation since June has found it to be the most powerful known to modern science. "This one, called ASASSN-15lh, is about 3.8 billion light years away, 200 times more powerful than most supernovas, and twice as bright as the previous record holder. It shines 20 times brighter than the combined output of the Milky Way's 100 billion stars, and in the last six months, it has spewed as much energy as the sun would in 10 lifetimes, says Krzysztof Stanek of the Ohio State University, co-principal investigator of the All Sky Automated Survey for SuperNovae (ASAS-SN) network that spotted the explosion." The explosion doesn't fit well with current theories of supernova energy release, so astronomers are working to figure out its unusual mechanics.

Comments

By orders of magnitude, which means stuff.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's interesting that the burst was missing the Hydrogen and Helium spectral bands. This is perhaps the most monitored "major" cosmological event near enough to see in realtime.

Re: By orders of magnitude, which means stuff.

[Anonymous Coward]

Note that the 56Ni Gamma lines were seen, but lasted longer than normal models predict, which means that by some process, 56Ni was continuing to be produced.
No theory or model currently can account for this. (56Ni->56Co->56Fe with a total half life of ~83 days. Significant 56Ni was still being seen after six months.)

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