The Incomprehensible Power of a Supernova

Real Clear Science ^ | 23 Jan, 2016 | Tom Hartsfield

[MtnClimber]

That supernova at bottom left is not sitting in front of the galaxy NGC 4526. It's in the outer edge of that galaxy, 55 million light years away.

Last summer, astronomers found the most powerful supernova they had ever seen, an event called ASSASN-15lh. Their report published in the journal Science last week contained a measurement of the total power of this explosion: (2.2+/-0.2) x 1045 Ergs per second. That's an esoteric number phrased in unfamiliar units. What's the real meaning of this much power?

Astronomers look at a stellar object and measure its luminosity: the amount of energy it releases per second. (Further, this is a measure called bolometric luminosity: the total power radiated out across all frequencies of electromagnetic waves.) This sort of measurement is very familiar to us, as we use several scales that measure energy per unit time. A watt, a horsepower, and calorie burned per hour are human measures of power.

[MtnClimber]

Global warming that went unnoticed on another free market planet?

[snarkpup]

The energy of ASSASN-15lh is comparable to converting the entire moon to pure energy every 30 seconds.

Let's put this into an official standard. What's that in Olympic swimming pools filled with gasoline per second?

[econjack]

A massive power plant produces about 10^9 watts. The total electrical energy generated by all power plants on earth is about 7.9 ^ 1019 Joules per year. In a single nanosecond, ASSASN-15lh expelled more energy than those power plants could produce, operating at full capacity, for 2.8 billion years.

To make this even more clear, in one nanosecond, light travels about 18 inches...it's a very brief period of time. Now, think about the power it's producing...mind boggling.

[SharpRightTurn]

“Let’s put this into an official standard. What’s that in Olympic swimming pools filled with gasoline per second?”

I like it.

[MtnClimber]

The sun may not be as spectacular, but Earth will be toast. Probably before the Milky Way galaxy and Andromeda galaxy collision in about 4 billion years

[Nuc 1.1]

Great post. Thanks.

[KarlInOhio]

Let's put this into an official standard. What's that in Olympic swimming pools filled with gasoline per second?

(2.5 million liters / pool) * (34.2 megajoules / liter) per second = 5.8 x 10^11 watts / pool.

2.2 x 10^38 watts / (5.8 x 10^11 watts / pool) = 380 septillion pools per second.

[dr_lew]

As intelligent as we are, our brains and our experiences don't prepare us to comprehend numbers and scales so big.

Au contraire mon frere!

"Intelligent as we are..." we amuse ouselves with conceptual magnitudes compared with which the magnitude of a googleplex to the googleplex power of these supernovas is virtually equivalent to a firefly.

[MtnClimber]

Lets hope Al Quada does not get one of those!

[KarlInOhio]

Lets hope Al Quada does not get one of those!

[MtnClimber]

:)

[Steely Tom]

Mass of moon is 7.35x10^22 kg
Speed of light is 2.99792x10^8 m/sec
E = Mc^2 = 6.60x10^39 joules
Olympic pool capacity = 660000 gal
Energy content of gasoline = 1.213x10^8 joules/gal
Gallons of gasoline in mass-energy of moon = 5.44x10^31
Olympic pools full of gasoline per mass-energy of moon = 8.25x10^25.

82.5 septillion Olympic pools worth of gasoline equals the amount of energy you'd get by converting the entire moon to pure energy.

[Shugee]

So now a BLACK hole will form. Won’t Jada and Will Smith be proud.

[snarkpup]

Thanks.

There are a host of XKCD standards that the article should also have mentioned, like laser pointer and AK-47-on-full-auto equivalents.

[MtnClimber]

Why yes they will. It will suck the life from all near them.

[Jack Hydrazine]

"There's one tiny little gap in the universe left. It's just about to close. And it takes a lot of power to send this projection. I'm in orbit around a supernova. I'm burning up a sun just to say goodbye."

The Doctor and Rose Say Goodbye - Doctor Who - Doomsday - BBC

[ctdonath2]

That event is in another galaxy far away.
Were it to happen to a star “near” us (still many light years away), we’d be fried.

[SpaceBar]

comparable to converting the entire moon to pure energy every 30 seconds

Here's another energy comparison. Little Boy (hiroshima) released the energy equivalent of 600 milligrams of matter.

[PJBankard]