A giant star may have destroyed itself in one of the rarest explosions (phys.org)
128 points by wglb a day ago
chasil 5 hours ago
There is a wiki on pair-instability supernovas. Antimatter (in the form of positrons) is a key factor.
wglb a day ago
Arxiv reprint: https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.16487
timwis 4 hours ago
Dark Forest theory, anyone?
groos 4 hours ago
It was a supergiant, hence died at a young age, and unlikely to have evolved life of any kind in its system.
tgrowazay 2 hours ago
That’s what Singer’s civilization wants you to think before they send a Photoid or Dual-Vector foil (but later would require a supervisor’s approval which is a PITA)
chasil 43 minutes ago
Pair-instability can only happen in low-metalicity surroundings.
The big bang created hydrogen, helium, and small amounts of lithium. Any higher elements are created by stars, and a significant presence of those "metals" will take a star down a different path than pair-instability.
Low-metalicity environments are not likely to be friendly to life.
ck2 5 hours ago
I just want to live long enough for space telescopes to evolve exponentially to observe kilonovas in the visual spectrum
I mean laser interferometers are an amazing advancement but just imagine seeing an earth-sized chunk of gold pop out of a kilonova (probably not my lifetime but eventually a human will see it happen)
Thank goodness this administration did not frack with Nancy Grace Roman Telescope, I thought the name alone would make them cancel it or rename it after him, wait maybe I shouldn't even mention that idea...
* https://science.nasa.gov/mission/roman-space-telescope/
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Grace_Roman_Space_Telesc...