IMAGES. “Assassin”, the most powerful supernova ever observed – The Express

The phenomenon is called a “supernova.” But it is with incredible power. For several months, astronomers attending the explosion of a star at end of life. His particuliarity? Power ever seen in the history of astrophysics, with a brightness of 570 billion times brighter than our sun. This is actually an exceptional example of “hyper-luminous supernova”, a rare variety of very high intensity explosions caused by certain dying stars.

This observation may help better understand these extreme celestial phenomena still mysterious. This supernova, called ASASSN-15lh, is 200 times more powerful than the typical explosion of these objects among the brightest in the universe. At the height of the explosion, the light intensity equivalent to about twenty times that of all of the approximately hundred billion stars that make up our galaxy, the Milky Way, these scientists have calculated that the discovery was published Thursday in the journal Science .

“Mystery”

“ASASSN-15lh is the most powerful supernova ever found in the history of humanity and the explosive mechanism and source the power of the explosion and the energy released remains a mystery as no theory of physics really manages to explain, “said Subo Dong, professor of astronomy at the University of Beijing, the a lead author.

The galaxy in which it resides is also known without precedent, say the astronomers. Until then all the “super supernovae” were observed in low light and small galaxies where stars form much more quickly than in the Milky Way.

However, the galaxy in which seems to be ASASSN-15lh is larger and brighter than the Milky Way. To these scientists, this particular environment may explain the galactic superpower of this supernova stars by creating capable of generating these huge amounts of energy exploding.

A “magnétoile”?

To clarify these and other mysteries surrounding the supernova, the research team will make observations with the Space Telescope Hubble. Todd Thompson, professor of astronomy at the University of Ohio State, it would be possible that the supernova was a type of neutron star with an extremely rare, says magnétoile, which turns on itself at least a thousand times per second and created a very strong magnetic field, converting all the light rotational energy.

But if we discover that this object is located in the very heart of a large galaxy, this one and the gases that surround it might actually not be a supernova but rather some sort of activity unusual around a very massive black hole, the astronomers supputent.