[Crazieman]

And even at 240 million light years away, this star in a distant galaxy does suggest that a similar and relatively nearby star—one 44 trillion miles away—might blow in similar fashion any day now or 50,000 years from now, Smith said. It wouldn't threaten Earth, but it would be visible to people in the Southern Hemisphere, he said.

Leave it to idiot reporters to get something wrong. I can't find any stars 7.3-7.5 lightyears away (assuming 5.88 or rounded up to 6 trillion miles/lightyear) matching such a description. Sirius A comes close at 8.5 lightyears but is visible in the Northern Hemisphere.

[El Gato]

Leave it to idiot reporters to get something wrong. I can't find any stars 7.3-7.5 lightyears away (assuming 5.88 or rounded up to 6 trillion miles/lightyear) matching such a description

I also can't imagine five times bigger than any previously observer supernovae only 7.4 light years away not causing any danger to earth. That's close by stellar distance standards.

It would also mean that the thing could have gone boom 7 years ago and we'd be toast in time for Labor Day. But of course that's true no matter how far away the thing actually is.

It would have nice to identify this potential super-supernovae,wouldn't it?

[El Gato]

Leave it to idiot reporters to get something wrong. I can't find any stars 7.3-7.5 lightyears away (assuming 5.88 or rounded up to 6 trillion miles/lightyear) matching such a description.

The other story linked above says the star in question is Eta Carinae, located in the constellation Carina (right ascension 10 h 45.1 m, declination −59°41m), about 7,500 to 8,000 light-years from The Sun. It is not visible north of, typically, latitude 27°N.

And here a Hubble Snapshot of that bad boy.

As you can see, he's been bad before (1843 - 7,500 to 8,000 years) The resulting nebulae is called the Homunculus Nebula.