"Hypernovas" - The Most Violent Object in the Universe Confirmed

Most astronomers today believe that one of the most plausible reasons we have yet to detect intelligent life in the universe is due to the deadly effects of local supernova explosions that wipe out all life in a given region of a galaxy.

While there is, on average, only one supernova per galaxy per century, there is something on the order of 100 billion galaxies in the observable Universe. Taking 10 billion years for the age of the Universe (it's actually 13.7 billion, but stars didn't form for the first few hundred million), Dr. Richard Mushotzky of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, derived a figure of 1 billion supernovae per year, or 30 supernovae per second in the observable Universe!

Most astronomers today believe that one of the most plausible reasons we have yet to detect intelligent life in the universe is due to the deadly effects of local supernova explosions that wipe out all life in a given region of a galaxy.

While there is, on average, only one supernova per galaxy per century, there is something on the order of 100 billion galaxies in the observable Universe. Taking 10 billion years for the age of the Universe (it's actually 13.7 billion, but stars didn't form for the first few hundred million), Dr. Richard Mushotzky of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, derived a figure of 1 billion supernovae per year, or 30 supernovae per second in the observable Universe!

Certain rare stars -real killers -type 11 stars, are core-collapse hypernova that generate deadly gamma ray bursts (GRBs). These long burst objects release 1000 times the non-neutrino energy release of an ordinary "core-collapse" supernova. Concrete proof of the core-collapse GRB model came in 2003.

It was made possible in part to a fortuitously "nearby" burst whose location was distributed to astronomers by the Gamma-ray Burst Coordinates Network (GCN). On March 29, 2003, a burst went off close enough that the follow-up observations were decisive in solving the gamma-ray burst mystery. The optical spectrum of the afterglow was nearly identical to that of supernova SN1998bw. In addition, observations from x-ray satellites showed the same characteristic signature of "shocked" and "heated" oxygen that's also present in supernovae. Thus, astronomers were able to determine the "afterglow" light of a relatively close gamma-ray burst (located "just" 2 billion light years away) resembled a supernova.

It isn't known if every hypernova is associated with a GRB. However, astronomers estimate only about one out of 100,000 supernovae produce a hypernova. This works out to about one gamma-ray burst per day, which is in fact what is observed.

What is almost certain is that the core of the star involved in a given hypernova is massive enough to collapse into a black hole (rather than a neutron star). So every GRB detected is also the "birth cry" of a new black hole.

Who ever said science is boring!

Casey Kazan.Adapted from NASAJPL materials.

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l1/why_hyper.html

Certain rare stars -real killers -type 11 stars, are core-collapse hypernova that generate deadly gamma ray bursts (GRBs). These long burst objects release 1000 times the non-neutrino energy release of an ordinary "core-collapse" supernova. Concrete proof of the core-collapse GRB model came in 2003.

It was made possible in part to a fortuitously "nearby" burst whose location was distributed to astronomers by the Gamma-ray Burst Coordinates Network (GCN). On March 29, 2003, a burst went off close enough that the follow-up observations were decisive in solving the gamma-ray burst mystery. The optical spectrum of the afterglow was nearly identical to that of supernova SN1998bw. In addition, observations from x-ray satellites showed the same characteristic signature of "shocked" and "heated" oxygen that's also present in supernovae. Thus, astronomers were able to determine the "afterglow" light of a relatively close gamma-ray burst (located "just" 2 billion light years away) resembled a supernova.

It isn't known if every hypernova is associated with a GRB. However, astronomers estimate only about one out of 100,000 supernovae produce a hypernova. This works out to about one gamma-ray burst per day, which is in fact what is observed.

What is almost certain is that the core of the star involved in a given hypernova is massive enough to collapse into a black hole (rather than a neutron star). So every GRB detected is also the "birth cry" of a new black hole.

Who ever said science is boring!

Casey Kazan.Adapted from NASAJPL materials.

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l1/why_hyper.html

Comments

[Dredd]

All the more reason to take the tenets of ecocosmology seriously. I agree with this article.

The human species faces the same dilemna, so to avoid extinction we must pass The Test.

[dirk alan]

stuff happens - get a life.

[ar-lock]

The tile suggesting that our inability "to detect intelligent life in the universe is due to the deadly effects of local supernova explosions"

this is not addressed in the text.

these articles are grabbing lots of text form parent articles and the context is sometimes lost. please pay the writer to add more, perhpas perspective, in these articles. the aggregation is great. writing would be your a value added in my books .

[Jerrell Thomas]

Just a little observation about arithmetic:
If you know how many supernovae per unit time per galaxie and how many galaxies, why do you need to know anything about the age of the universe to calculate the supernovae per unit time in all the galaxies combined?

[Bryan]

Fuck you, Devir.

[Asad]

Seeing is beleiving.....I ahve not seen it ....so y should I beleive all this stuff.....

www.scitechie.com

[John Woods Beeno]

Wow, that is quite fascinating indeed!

Russ
www.web-anonymity.de.tc

[Esquare]

This item looks suspiciously familiar to me...

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/10/hypernovas-the-most-violent-objects-in-the-universe.html

[$#!+storm]

Ah duh! Really! Life can be extinguish by an enormous explosion. This article explains it all! It possibly explains the global warming issue or is it climate change or global cooling?

[pırlanta]

thats really good, thank you so much.

[scientific research]

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[jeremy kelly]

how does it turn green after exploding thats so cool!!!!

[Axel]

Whether we are created by accident, purpose, or a god, humans are the only being at least on earth who have a chance to move life from a given planet (in our case earth) to another planet, and in some time even to another galaxy.

If we trust that all life is created with the idea in mind to spread and grow - we have a hell of a responsibility in the next 10,000 years to bring life to other systems in the universe - or vanish away as we would have never existed.

Saving earth is an important undertaking but only a tiny first step in protecting life in the universe.