Freethought & Rationalism Archive

ps418 · 04-07-2003, 12:11 PM

Interesting article from ScienceDaily about a so-called hypernova:

Quote:

"The optical brightness of this gamma ray burst is about 100 times more intense than anything we've ever seen before. It's also much closer to us than all other observed bursts so we can study it in considerably more detail," said Carl W. Akerlof, an astrophysicist in the Physics Department at the University of Michigan.
. . .

"During the first minute after the explosion it emitted energy at a rate more than a million times the combined output of all the stars in the Milky Way. If you concentrated all the energy that the sun will put out over its entire 9 billion-year life into a tenth of a second, then you would have some idea of the brightness," said Michael Ashley, faculty member in the astrophysics and optics department at the University of New South Wales and a member of the ROTSE team.

It's A Nova � It's A Supernova � It's A HYPERNOVA

Patrick

Dan<Devil> · 04-08-2003, 01:38 AM

Nice. One question: how many solar masses had that star?(it wasn't on the page)-only curious

ps418 · 04-08-2003, 06:19 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Dan<Devil>
Nice. One question: how many solar masses had that star?(it wasn't on the page)-only curious

Since the page doesn't specify or list a reference, I have no idea. I would assume the answer is greater than ten, but less than a hundred million. IIRC, the last gamma ray burst I read about was thought to come from an object ~20 solar masses. Of course, this one is by far the brightest yet observed, so the star may be much, much more massive than that. I assume a paper will appear soon.

Patrick

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04-08-2003, 01:38 AM	#2
Dan<Devil> Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Bucharest, Romania Posts: 29	Nice. One question: how many solar masses had that star?(it wasn't on the page)-only curious

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