Just under the wire (by an hour), today's astro-image of the day: The shot below shows supernova SN 2006gy, the brightest ever recorded at - get this - 100 times brighter than most and beyond the theoretical limit for brightness.

"WTF?" said the astro-dudes, "Be we all wrong-ed what how da supernovae work?"

"Dudes," said Stan Woosley, astro-prof at UC-Santa Cruz, "you be not wrong, you just need a new 'splanation for this'un."

(Okay, perhaps they didn't speak exactly like this, but it amuses me to picture astrophysicists - decked out in lab coats and bleary-eyed from long nights at the eyepice - speaking thus.)


Click the image to see the story.

I love how science works: If something doesn't make sense, don't just give up: Explain why, test it, then have your a-ha! moment as the universe makes sense again.

And it's purty, too, isn't it?

Chris
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From: [identity profile] mckitterick.livejournal.com


...and can you imagine how BRIGHT it must be? If the typical supernova is as bright as the entire galaxy where it lives (picture that!), this one is 100 times brighter than an entire galaxy.

If you lived on a world in this star's galaxy, you would go blind when this supernova rose above the horizon... if the gamma-rays from it hadn't already annihilated all life.

From: [identity profile] emessar.livejournal.com


okay ... your next story set in the distant future has to have everyone talk like this and focus on scientists ... it's awesome ...

From: [identity profile] silk-noir.livejournal.com


beyond the theoretical limit for brightness

*raising hand*

My notes don't go over this. Could you go over this just one more time, sir?

From: [identity profile] http://users.livejournal.com/_starlady_/


Amazing. Thanks for pointing my attention to the article. Leaves me in awe.
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