Brilliant New Supernova Shatters Cosmic Records For Brightness, Energy, And Even Mass
“Only perhaps a dozen superluminous supernovae have ever been observed, and this one takes the cake as far as its absolute brightness is concerned. In terms of brightness, energy, and the inferred mass of the progenitor star — whose best-fit estimate is over 150 times the mass of our Sun — no other supernova ever seen can compete. There really are stellar explosions out there so energetic that they outstrip anything ever seen before.
There's still so much to learn about these classes of objects: whether their afterglows are radioactive, how massive their progenitors are, whether they come from single or multi-star systems, and how frequently they occur. With the Vera Rubin Observatory and James Webb Space Telescope both coming online soon, we'll be able to detect, classify, and spectroscopically measure these objects more than halfway to the edge of the observable Universe. We've just seen the tip of the iceberg, and later this decade, we'll truly find out what lies beneath the surface of our cosmic ocean.”
Supernovae are normally some of the most energetic cataclysms in the entire Universe, emitting in one explosive outburst as much energy as the Sun emits over its entire 10 billion year lifetime. But some supernovae are superluminous: outshining even standard supernovae many times over. Well, we just broke all the records by unheard of margins, as SN2016aps was more than 500 times brighter than a typical supernova.
The paper just came out yesterday, and here’s what scientists think is really going on.
