King of all Supernovas - Supernova SN 2006gy

On 7th May 2007, NASA released this video animation of the brightest stellar explosion ever recorded, SN2006gy. Scientists at NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and ground-based optical telescopes believe this could be a new type of supernova, a type common in the early universe.

Nathan Smith of the University of California at Berkeley said "This was a truly monstrous explosion, a hundred times more energetic than a typical supernova. That means the star that exploded might have been as massive as a star can get, about 150 times that of our sun."

Image at right: Artist's illustration of supernova SN 2006gy. Image Credit: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss; X-ray: NASA/CXC/UC Berkeley/N.Smith et al.; IR: Lick/UC Berkeley/J.Bloom & C.Hansen
Video Credit: NASA

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