Scientists discover brightest supernova ever seen

https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/2020-06

75 21 6 years ago

cfa.harvard.edu

coldcode• 6 years ago

I wonder what this would look like from less than Galactic distances, i.e. close enough to see but not close enough to incinerate.

Ididntdothis• 6 years ago

There are historical reports about supernovae where they were visible during the day for a few weeks. I guess it would look just like another bright star. Makes me wonder what the minimum safe distance is.

duxup• 6 years ago

Yean I was thinking the same thing.

How spectacular of a view could you get from an earth like planet ... and still not have any ill effects?

Could it be a huge spectacular thing reaching across the entire sky, or would by that stage you be in real trouble?

kaonwarb• 6 years ago

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SN_1006 - "likely the brightest observed stellar event in recorded history." Observed in 1006 AD "across the modern day countries of China, Japan, Iraq, Egypt, and the continent of Europe, and possibly recorded in North American petroglyphs."

MichaelApproved• 6 years ago

Betelgeuse is a massive star within our galaxy that's relatively close, at 642 light years away. Scientists believe it'll go supernova relatively soon, within 100,000 years.

When it does go supernova, it could be as bright as the moon and still visible during the day.

This video shows what that might look like https://youtu.be/hJPVuSNFxlY?t=10

yread• 6 years ago

What a strange press release. Energy measured in ergs, 100 solar masses "incredibly massive" star?

goodcanadian• 6 years ago

Ergs is pretty commonly used in physics. A 100 solar mass star is very massive: 150 solar masses is about the theoretical limit for a star.

pdkl95• 6 years ago

~150 solar masses is the Eddington limit[1] where the outward luminosity pressure becomes greater than the inward gravitational pressure holding the star together. Stars probably cannot grow past this size through normal accretion. However, a few[2] stars have been estimated to have masses much greater than 150 solar masses, up to R136a1 [3] with an estimated 315 solar masses.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddington_luminosity

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_massive_stars#Lis...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R136a1

JoeAltmaier2• 6 years ago

With a total energy output of 10^44 Joules, it seems odd to exclaim over "500 times brighter!" I guess supernovae all exist in a very narrow band of energies?

ben_w• 6 years ago

One particular class of supernova is used as a standard candle for determining the distances to other galaxies.

SiempreViernes3• 6 years ago

Yeah, but that uses carefully calibrated relations with the time evolution at different filters to significantly decrease the the observed spread in luminosity.

Also, here they don't report on a Type Ia supernova (the ones useable as standard candles because we ain't got anything else).

SiempreViernes3• 6 years ago

That statement means that range of energies extends over two orders of magnitude at least, I'm not sure if I'd call that a "narrow" range...

JoeAltmaier2• 6 years ago

After 44 zeros... On a log scale, which seems sensible to use for things like this, one is 44 and the other 46.2? or something like that.

enkid• 6 years ago

Wouldn't brightness have a cube root relationship to energy, because it radiates into space? That would make it 125 million times more energetic.

Edit: Rereading the article, it seems it's only one order of magnitude higher than a normal explosion? I clearly am out of my depth on this one, because that doesn't make sense to me.

btilly• 6 years ago

Wouldn't brightness have a cube root relationship to energy, because it radiates into space?

No. The light actually expands in a 2-D wave. So it falls off as the square of distance.

But if we consider 2 sources near each other, they both spread out the same amount by the time they get to us. Therefore there is a linear relationship between energy and apparent brightness. (On top of the inverse square relationship to distance.)

Hopefully this helps!

dak1• 6 years ago

Anton Petrov has pretty decent coverage of this on his YouTube channel[1].

This type of supernova has been theorized, although to my knowledge not previously observed (due to the mechanics, about 50% of the energy is radiated as visible light, which is why they're so exceptionally bright).

We do have a star near us that is theorized to have undergone a pulsational pair instability supernova in the 19th century: Eta Carinae.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhjHs2L4kqw

nwallin• 6 years ago

Eta Carinae underwent supernova imposter events, not supernova. Otherwise there wouldn't be an Eta Carinae.

Scientists discover brightest supernova ever seen

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