power

May 9, 2007 by  

If you’re feeling diminished or drained or a bit dark, it may help to remember that the atoms that make up “you” are the same atoms that make up the stars, including SN 2006gy which recently stunned scientists in the way it went supernova.

And that’s just an infinitesimal example of the source that we can connect with.

He said the explosion, which was located some 240 million light-years away, polluted the surrounding environment with metals and elements that are needed for life.

Scientists say that the star which blew apart is similar to Eta Carinae, an enormous star in our own Milky Way, 7,500 light-years from Earth.

They say that before SN 2006gy went supernova, it expelled a large amount of material, similar in mass to that now being ejected by Eta Carinae, prompting speculation that a similar fate awaits Eta Carinae.

Dave Pooley, at the University of California at Berkeley, said if Eta Carinae were to explode “it would be so bright that you would see it during the day, and you could even read a book by its light at night”.

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Star dies in monstrous explosion: “A star around 150 times the size of the Sun explodes in the most powerful supernova yet detected, Nasa says.”

(Via BBC News | Science/Nature | UK Edition.)

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