A star 100-200 times more massive than our own sun went nova in September 2006, making it the biggest supernova in recorded history, according to a new study from the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Texas.
Not only was it bigger, but it took longer to reach the pinnacle of its brightness and stayed that way for months, and is outshining its host galaxy, NGC 1260, which is 240 million light-years from Earth.
UC Berkeley post doctoral fellow Nathan Smith said that the discovery of supernova SN 2006gy may revolutionize the understanding of how really massive stars end their life.
(Artist's concept above, real images after the jump)
"Instead of just winking away into a black hole, they apparently can suffer these brilliant explosions that can be seen far across the universe. The fact that this thing is so bright, and stayed bright for a long time, makes our chances of detecting them in the early universe much better," he said in a statement.
Smith's colleague, Alex Filippenko, an astronomy professor at UC
Berkeley, said that another nearby star in the Milky Way Galaxy, Eta
Carinae, may go nova in much the same fashion.
"This is also very exciting because it suggests that Eta Carinae, only
7,500 light years away, might possibly explode in a similar manner, becoming a spectacularly bright star in our sky," Filippenko said in a statement.
Here the supernova was captured by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and ground-based optical telescopes.
The Lick Observatory captured this image of SN 2006gy
This image is a wide-field infrared view from the PAIRITEL telescope of the galaxy NGC 1260. NGC 1260 is located about 240 million light years away.
NASA's Chandra Sees Brightest Supernova Ever [Eurekalert]
More images here.
By Cyrus Farivar.
