Super-sized Supernova: what a bang!

[Rosanella]

This is what happens when a star the size of 50 suns explodes

Super-sized Supernova: Scientists Observe Largest Exploding Star Yet Seen

........what a bang!

[The Warthog]

this is the way the world ends

this is the way the world ends

this is the way the world ends

not with a bang but a, uh, OK, a bang...

With heartfelt apologies to T.S.Eliot.

[RobH]

Amazing stuff If that has truly captured the moment a black hole appears then we are seeing a seminal moment in science.

I have a couple of questions.

Is the image scale the same on each frame?

What is the size of the FOV? (light years, roughly)

Cheers

Rob

[Ben Ritchie]

The image in that link must be some kind of simulation. The Hubble image is here:

HubbleSite - NewsCenter - Hubble Uncovers an Unusual Stellar Progenitor to a Supernova (03/22/2009) - Release Images

The progenitor appears to have been a luminous blue variable (LBV), a very massive, dynamically unstable supergiant (and they're what I work on ). The paper's interesting, but the link isn't as unexpected as the article makes it seem - LBVs have already been suggested as supernova progenitors, and we know that SN1987a had a hot, blue progenitor star which is also in the 'wrong place' on the HR diagram. Eta Carinae, another LBV, had a massive eruption in the 1840s that was energetically similar to a supernova (similar energies involved) but the star survived it, that's possibly a different mechanism called a pair-instability supernova rather than the traditional core collapse which 'fizzled' in the Eta Car case. Finally there are things called 'supernova impostors' which appear to be giant LBV excursions similar to the Eta Car eruption. So this latest paper is part of a growing body of evidence that these stars can be supernova progenitors and are generally related to supernova-type optical transients.

[Ben Ritchie]

The caption to the image in the first link is here, explains what's going on (...kind of...)

Figure 3 | Graphic illustrations of various manifestations of the violent

evolution of the most luminous stars. a, LBVs suffer frequent eruptions (with

a typical mass-loss rate of around 1022 M[ yr21) accompanied by relatively

low-level (of the order of 50%) variability4 (line graphs at the bottom of panels

illustrate temporal flux evolution, with time flowing due right). Less frequent

‘super outbursts’ may involve the ejection of massive, many-solar-mass

shells4,28, along with very luminous optical displays, during which the

luminosity of the star may increase by an order of magnitude or more. These

events (sometimes called supernova impostors26) can therefore be confused

with genuine supernova explosions. b, Collisions between a faster massive

ejected shell (v1) and a slower one (v2) have been speculated to result in very

luminous events, comparable energetically to bright supernova explosions,

but which do not lead to a total destruction of the star22,23. c, Our observations

show that such luminous stars can evolve and explode as supernovae, after

having previously lost some, but not all, of their hydrogen envelopes. The

interaction of the expanding debris from the supernova explosion with

previously lost mass will result in strong shocks, producing the typical

signatures of type IIn supernovae. d, Super outbursts occurring shortly before

the final explosion of such stars can appear as supernova precursors25.