A Super-Supernova? Can You Say Hypernova?

I recently saw a show on the Discover Channel about a cosmic phenomenon I had not heard of before called a hypernova. I was just flipping through the channels, but when I came across this show I had to keep watching. You think a supernova is pretty powerful, it’s nothing compared to a hypernova.

A possible hypernova in the making, Eta Carinae is amazingly, almost impossibly bright, shining 4 million times brighter than our sun. It is also wildly unstable, prone to huge flares, outbursts and dizzying swings in brightness that make it look as if it’s on the verge of self-destruction. Although it’s 7,500 light years away, it could still pose a threat to Earth should it explode. We humans will most likely be okay, the threat would most likely be to satellites and the upper atmosphere.

Hypernova are formed only by incredibly heavy and fast burning stars. When a star that’s at least 40 times more massive than our sun exhausts its nuclear fuel, it will collapse into a black hole, ejecting twin plasma jets at almost the speed of light – going hypernova. A hypernova is the most energetic event in the universe, converting chunks of matter the size of our sun into electromagnetic radiation almost instantly. A typical star may live for ten billion years or more, but one that will become a hypernova will collapse in around one million. To burn this quickly they need a huge amount of fuel. The stars find this in what are called stellar nurseries; huge clouds of gas that combine to form new stars.

A typical supernova is very energetic; it can shine as bright as its host galaxy for weeks or even months. Hypernova on the other hand are extremely rare, occurring only five times every million years in our galaxy, and a great deal more powerful, up to 100 times more powerful than a supernova. A hypernova could be called a super-supernova that at its peak will outshine the entire galaxy. It was recently discovered that hypernovae are the source of previously mysterious gamma-ray bursts.

A great article on this can be found over at Science Daily. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/04/030407075127.htm