Cautioning that theorists still do not know for sure what caused the explosion announced today, Dr. Livio said, “Here we have the brightest supernova we have ever observed and we don’t know the explosion mechanism. It doesn’t get any more exciting for a theorist.”And I thought I was easily amused.
But really, this is a big thing. Very big.
“It is quite possibly the most massive star that has ever been seen to explode,” said Nathan Smith of the University of California, Berkeley, who estimated the star as “freakishly massive,” about 150 times the mass of the Sun.If a star in our own galaxy were to blow up the same way (and, as it turns out, one just might)...
The explosion would be visible in the daylight and at night you would be able to read a book by its light.Link: Astronomers Report Biggest Stellar Explosion - New York Times
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