ASASSN-15lh - The Most Powerful Supernova Ever Seen.
32 replies, posted
[QUOTE]Astronomers have glimpsed the most powerful supernova ever seen, a star in a galaxy billions of light-years away that exploded with such force it briefly shone nearly 600 billion times brighter than our Sun and 20 times brighter than all the stars in the Milky Way combined. The explosion released 10 times more energy than the Sun will radiate in 10 billion years.
If the supernova took place in our own galaxy, it would be easily seen by the naked eye even during the day; if it were 10,000 light-years away, it would appear to us at night as bright as the crescent Moon. If it were only as far away as Sirius, which at a distance of 8.6 light-years is the brightest star in the nighttime sky, it would blaze overhead almost as powerfully as the Sun. If it were as close as Pluto, it would vaporize the Earth and all the other worlds in our solar system.
Called ASASSN-15lh, after the All Sky Automated Survey for SuperNovae (ASAS-SN) telescopic survey that discovered it, the outburst belongs to a class of rare “superluminous supernovae,” which can shine hundreds of times brighter than stellar explosions normally do. But ASASSN-15lh is about three times brighter than the previous brightest record-holder—so luminous that it approaches the limits of what theorists believe is possible for these mighty cosmic outbursts. The findings are published in [I][URL="http://www.sciencemag.org/lookup/doi/10.1126/science.aac9613"]Science[/URL][/I].
Source:
[URL]http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/found-the-most-powerful-supernova-ever-seen/[/URL]
[/QUOTE]
Heaps more information in the article.
That's like, the name a cod kid would use
[QUOTE=J!NX;49571502]That's like, the name a cod kid would use[/QUOTE]
xXxASASSNxXx
[QUOTE=J!NX;49571502]That's like, the name a cod kid would use[/QUOTE]
*teleports behind u while violently rebounding most of steller material off iron core and whispers in ur ear*
Pshh... Nothin personnel... Kid
That's freaky that if it was closer it would be like a 2nd sun. Would it heat us up at all?
[QUOTE=Glitchman;49571750]That's freaky that if it was closer it would be like a 2nd sun. Would it heat us up at all?[/QUOTE]
It would vaporize every planetary body in our solar system if it were as near as Pluto, so that's pretty impressive.
It's also a magnetar, it seems. So it has that ludicrously strong magnetic field as well.
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;49571782]It would vaporize every planetary body in our solar system if it were as near as Pluto, so that's pretty impressive.[/QUOTE]
Most supernovae would do this if within this range, though.
The magnetic field of magnetars is so strong that (if close enough, at which point you ahve other problems) it could rip the iron from your blood. Near a magnetar:
- atoms deform into cigar shapes
- electron clouds don't work the way they should, normal chemistry is out the window
- xray photons are split and able to recombine, others slow wayyy down. Yes, photons no longer travel at C
[QUOTE=paindoc;49571890]It's also a magnetar, it seems. So it has that ludicrously strong magnetic field as well.
Most supernovae would do this if within this range, though.
The magnetic field of magnetars is so strong that (if close enough, at which point you ahve other problems) it could rip the iron from your blood. Near a magnetar:
- atoms deform into cigar shapes
- electron clouds don't work the way they should, normal chemistry is out the window
- xray photons are split and able to recombine, others slow wayyy down. Yes, photons no longer travel at C[/QUOTE]
Think of the weird ass things that could be synthesized in the AOE of a magnetar...
[QUOTE=paindoc;49571890]It's also a magnetar, it seems. So it has that ludicrously strong magnetic field as well.
Most supernovae would do this if within this range, though.
The magnetic field of magnetars is so strong that (if close enough, at which point you ahve other problems) it could rip the iron from your blood. Near a magnetar:
- atoms deform into cigar shapes
- electron clouds don't work the way they should, normal chemistry is out the window
- xray photons are split and able to recombine, others slow wayyy down. Yes, photons no longer travel at C[/QUOTE]
TIL what a magnetar is.
That is [I]super cool[/I].
I thought Hypernovas where the highest
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;49571782]It would vaporize every planetary body in our solar system if it were as near as Pluto, so that's pretty impressive.[/QUOTE]
a supernova within 100 light years of us would probably fry most life on the planet from all the gamma rays
How come there's no images of something that was 20 times brighter than all the stars in the galaxy?
[QUOTE=paindoc;49571890]It's also a magnetar, it seems. So it has that ludicrously strong magnetic field as well.
Most supernovae would do this if within this range, though.
The magnetic field of magnetars is so strong that (if close enough, at which point you ahve other problems) it could rip the iron from your blood. Near a magnetar:
- atoms deform into cigar shapes
- electron clouds don't work the way they should, normal chemistry is out the window
- xray photons are split and able to recombine, others slow wayyy down. Yes, photons no longer travel at C[/QUOTE]
maybe im just being pedantic but photons on earth area always traveling under C, which is of course [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation]why water cooled reactors glow[/url]
[editline]20th January 2016[/editline]
[QUOTE=AngryChairR;49572114]How come there's no images of something that was 20 times brighter than all the stars in the galaxy?[/QUOTE]
[img]https://www.sciencenews.org/sites/default/files/2016/01/main/blogposts/ticker_brightsupernova_free.jpg[/img]
[QUOTE=DOG-GY;49572164]maybe im just being pedantic but photons on earth area always traveling under C, which is of course [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation]why water cooled reactors glow[/url]
[editline]20th January 2016[/editline]
[img]https://www.sciencenews.org/sites/default/files/2016/01/main/blogposts/ticker_brightsupernova_free.jpg[/img][/QUOTE]
Slightly, but not unfairly pedantic. You are correct in pointing that out, and should since it causes such a neat effect. Guess it'd be more accurate to say it hugely affects their speed in a vacuum, which is more noteworthy.
I don't like space anymore
I wanna stay in my dungeon
My mom's basement
[QUOTE=J!NX;49571502]That's like, the name a cod kid would use[/QUOTE]
Fucking seriously. That's the first thing I thought.
They really named it that? [I]really? [/i]
[QUOTE=Bradyns;49571237]Astronomers have glimpsed the most powerful supernova ever seen, a star in a galaxy billions of light-years away that exploded with such force it briefly shone nearly [B]600 billion times brighter than our Sun[/B] and 20 times brighter than all the stars in the Milky Way combined. The explosion released [B]10 times more energy than the Sun will radiate in 10 billion years.[/B][/QUOTE]
Why do astronomers seem to love numbers so large that they are basically meaningless?
[QUOTE=The bird Man;49572423]I don't like space anymore
I wanna stay in my dungeon
My mom's basement[/QUOTE]
The gamma ray burst from a star of that magnitude shitting its pants would fry out planet into looking like mercury. Sorry Charlie
[QUOTE=saintsim;49572464]Why do astronomers seem to love numbers so large that they are basically meaningless?[/QUOTE]
Yeah, why can't it be six times brighter than our sun? Dumb astronomers!
[QUOTE=saintsim;49572464]Why do astronomers seem to love numbers so large that they are basically meaningless?[/QUOTE]
Because that is the scale of the cosmos. We are hardly even motes of dust compared to our galaxy, let alone the universe. And these numbers are the truth, and stellar cataclysms like this event are always ridiculous.
A popular joke is that astrophysicists will go with any answer as long as it's within an order of magnitude or two (my physics prof was guilty of this). But the reality is that the gulfs are often this wide, and that estimating stuff like this is ridiculously hard so error is gonna happen
[editline]20th January 2016[/editline]
[QUOTE=ZakkShock;49572465]The gamma ray burst from a star of that magnitude shitting its pants would fry out planet into looking like mercury. Sorry Charlie[/QUOTE]
Yeah, gamma ray bursts don't fuck around
[QUOTE=ZakkShock;49572455]Fucking seriously. That's the first thing I thought.
They really named it that? [I]really? [/i][/QUOTE]
[quote] Called ASASSN-15lh, after the All Sky Automated Survey for SuperNovae (ASAS-SN) telescopic survey that discovered it [/quote]
they didn't name it that for shits and giggles, its literally the acronym for the telescope survey that discovered the supernova.
[QUOTE=Toro;49572643]they didn't name it that for shits and giggles, its literally the acronym for the telescope survey that discovered the supernova.[/QUOTE]
I was going to point that out but found the idea of it being a COD name too funny :v:
There are a bunch of these automated systems coming online. My University is one of the hosts of the SDSS (Sloan Digital Sky Survey), which is sorta like this and serves as an archive and can be used to search for phenomena like this. The big trend in astronomy seems to be towards a lot of automated systems using machine learning and huge databases to search through tremendous amounts of the sky for fresh data.
Heres the website of the ASAS though
[url]http://www.astrouw.edu.pl/asas/[/url]
It's crazy that a star will use up most of its energy over billions of years, and then explode in the fraction of a second with the force equal to if not more than the energy it produced over the time.
Then again, technically, I guess it doesn't use up most of its energy
Feel bad for all those poor aliens who probably got fried.
Ass Ass In
[QUOTE=paindoc;49571890]It's also a magnetar, it seems. So it has that ludicrously strong magnetic field as well.
Most supernovae would do this if within this range, though.
The magnetic field of magnetars is so strong that (if close enough, at which point you ahve other problems) it could rip the iron from your blood. Near a magnetar:
- atoms deform into cigar shapes
- electron clouds don't work the way they should, normal chemistry is out the window
- xray photons are split and able to recombine, others slow wayyy down. Yes, photons no longer travel at C[/QUOTE]
Fun fact: The strongest proton NMR spectrometers operate at fields of 21.1T, leading to a splitting in energy levels that corresponds to 900MHz radiation, which lies in the microwave region. Magnetars, with their field strengths of billions of Teslas, cause a splitting that corresponds to 42.6THz radiation, which sits nicely in the middle of the infrared spectrum. In other words, you could use infrared spectroscopy to probe nuclear environments under such a strong magnetic field. Of course, as you mentioned, this would be very much useless as molecules as we know wouldn't exist under such strong magnetic fields.
[QUOTE=paindoc;49571890]It's also a magnetar, it seems. So it has that ludicrously strong magnetic field as well.
Most supernovae would do this if within this range, though.
The magnetic field of magnetars is so strong that (if close enough, at which point you ahve other problems) it could rip the iron from your blood. Near a magnetar:
- atoms deform into cigar shapes
- electron clouds don't work the way they should, normal chemistry is out the window
- xray photons are split and able to recombine, others slow wayyy down. [B]Yes, photons no longer travel at C[/B][/QUOTE]
Source?
[QUOTE=Number-41;49576949]Source?[/QUOTE]
Well don't forget that photons also slow down in any medium.
In water photons go at about 0.5 C.
Individually they still travel at c but they are delayed [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refractive_index#Microscopic_explanation"]by the medium[/URL].
[QUOTE=Number-41;49578522]Individually they still travel at c but they are delayed [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refractive_index#Microscopic_explanation"]by the medium[/URL].[/QUOTE]
Hmmm, thanks for the info. I guess that makes more sense.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.