Your typical supernova occurs when a massive star suffers gravitational collapse resulting in a transient luminosity comparable to an entire galaxy. It is probably the root of the phrase "going out with a bang". What makes it so incredible is that after about a month all the matter fades away through the powerful vacuum of the resulting black hole.
Nature's largest thermonuclear bomb goes off in spectacular pyrotechnics followed by nothingness, vast substance silence.
That's what makes the recent images provided by NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory so unique. This time it appears that when supernova SN2006gy occurred the star spewed its remains into space over 70 days creating a radiance 100,000 million times as bright as the sun.
"'In terms of the effect on the universe, there's a huge difference between these two possibilities," said Dr Nathan Smith of the University of California at Berkeley. "One pollutes the galaxy with large quantities of newly made elements and the other locks them up forever in a black hole."
Makes you think that maybe stars are just hanging out in the universe deciding if they want to quietly into the night or live on in former self fragments of planets and asteroids. In fact maybe our humble planet earth is the result of just such a choice 4.5 billion years ago. And maybe the ancients weren't so crazy with their sun gods of Apollo, Helios, Ra, Inti, Surya and the rest after all.
