Astronomy / Space Dead stars 'can re-ignite' and explode (apparently)

Comandante

Comandante
Yeah, a cool mission would be to know that it's going to blow, and only have certain time to mine the area before it went again. Then fly to the edge of the system, pop open a beer and watch :)
 

Tomtom

Tomtom
Or take a bunch of tourists on your luxury liner to go watch the event. The closer you get to the spectacle the bigger the boost to your reputation. Unless you get too close, your ship gets damaged and the tourists get hurt (and maybe killed). Then you have to spend a week or two answering questions and filling in paperwork.
 

Calaban

Calaban
Type 1a supernova like these are the way astronomers have been measuring distances for years now. This is because such explosions are a "standard candle". They all blow up the exact same way, at the exact same brightness.

So knowing its actual luminosity and its apparent luminosity gives them another way to measure its distance. It was suspected that White Dwarfs were the originator of this type of Supernova, but was never proven. Until now.

What I would love to see/be alarmed to see would be a Pair Instability "HyperNova"... where a really big star doesnt implode into a black hole, but utterly explodes its entirety out into space in a titanic implosion-rebound explosion! :eek:
 
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