Another remarkable discovery from the astronomers, and this time, one of the most breathtaking celestial images I think I’ve ever seen. What you’re looking at above is the
most powerful supernova ever detected by man (by far!):
"Of all exploding stars ever observed, this was the king," said Alex Filippenko, leader of the ground-based observations at the Lick Observatory at Mt. Hamilton, Calif., and the Keck Observatory in Mauna Kea, Hawaii.
Filippenko was my professor at Berkeley. While a freshman in his Introduction to Astronomy course, I had the immense fortune to win an annual competition he held and to accompany him on a night of research to Lick, the observatory mentioned above.
We drove up together; shared a casual dinner with
Marcy &
Butler (the esteemed Cal duo who were the first to discover an extra-solar planet, and who went on to discover gads more than anyone else); toured his new toy, a
intelligent telescope/computer that scans the sky itself looking for supernovae; played with a jug of liquid nitrogen and a poor little orange (which went the way of the T1000); discussed his recent consultation with Spielberg’s people who were conducting research for what would become the film “Deep Impact”; and, finally, spent the deep night hours analyzing the spectrographic readings from a recently discovered
GRB.
That night, it was the fleeting GRB that turned Filippenko into a little kid, bursting with excitement. But, in general, he’s a man who’s devoted much of his life and passions to supernovae. You see, Filippenko is primarily concerned with
topology, the mind-bending study of the universe’s shape. A large part of that study involves mapping cosmological distances and measuring the expansion/contraction of the voids that create those distances. And a key way to do that is to use some of the brightest spots in the sky – supernovae – as distance markers in the heavens. Once these powerful objects are pinpointed, they can be evaluated for their
redshift. The brighter the marker, the better to map the universe and to trace its shape and future – i.e. whether it will continue to expand indefinitely, come to rest in equilibrium, or collapse back upon itself until...(Big) Bang!. Hence, one reason to get enthused about this latest, most magnificent bursting star.
Another reason is the unique process which led to this stars’ demise. It turns out the star was so massive - 150 times more so than our own sun - that supernova mechanics, as we’ve come to know them, don’t seem to apply here:
Supernovas usually occur when massive stars exhaust their fuel and collapse under their own gravity. In the case of SN 2006gy, astronomers think that a very different effect may have triggered the explosion. Under some conditions, the core of a massive star produces so much gamma ray radiation that some of the energy from the radiation converts into particle and anti-particle pairs [electrons & positrons – Star Trek anyone?]. The resulting drop in energy causes the star to collapse under its own huge gravity.
After this violent collapse, runaway thermonuclear reactions ensue and the star explodes, spewing the remains into space. The SN 2006gy data suggest that spectacular supernovas from the first stars - rather than completely collapsing to a black hole as theorized - may be more common than previously believed.
"In terms of the effect on the early universe, there's a huge difference between these two possibilities," said Smith. "One pollutes the galaxy with large quantities of newly made elements and the other locks them up forever in a black hole."
It turns out there is another star out there, similar in size and behavior to SN 2006gy, that is much closer and could be primed for its own fireworks display. Since it’s only 7,500 light years away – rather than the 240 million lights year that separate us from SN 2006gy – it would put on one hell of a show. According to astronomers, this other star, known as Eta Carinae, would be so bright if it went supernova it would be readily visible during the daytime, and you could read a book by its light at night! They also stress that Eta Carinae is far enough away to not cause any harm to Earth. Now that’s one show I’d like to see.
