My husband came home from work and told me that he heard "some kind of news story" about a "mega-supernova" that a couple of amateurs in Australia spotted last February, and that it was big enough to have annihilated our entire galaxy--if it hadn't taken place billions of years ago.

Or something like that. He didn't know why, if it was discovered last February, it was in the news today.

So I wondered if anyone had a link?

ETA: And there was something in there about planet-destroying gamma rays, too, which he predicted the Tinfoil Hat Brigade would very soon be focusing on.

BA Blog: Supernova

The BA was there in the bar where it sort of happened. Maybe not the same supernova though, since it was just spotted.

Perhaps this is the February Supernova of which you speak: Scientists Rethink Supernova

Typical overwrought-blogger version of GRB 060218 news: Supernova threatens Earth

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I happened to listen to a bit of that "talent on loan from Gawd" talk jock's show on my car radio yesterday just after an hourly news break. He expounded pompously about a GRB from a supernova that occurred in a galaxy 470 million light years distant. Of course, since humanity could be wiped out by such an event, if it were to take place close enough to Earth, it naturally followed that puny human beings could have no possible effect on the climate and shouldn't be worrying about "drive-by media" fantasies like global warming.

Dave Mitsky

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Chance favors the prepared mind.
De gustibus non est disputandum.
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

It's also characterized as an effective line of reasoning on what you hope will be a hot date.

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Forming opinions as we speak

A supernova more than twice as bright as others of its type has been observed, suggesting it arose from a star that managed to grow more massive than theoretically predicted. The observation suggests supernovae of this type are not "standard candles" as previously thought, which could affect their use as probes of dark energy – the mysterious force causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate.

Read more

Or this

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`Irony` actually does mean `metal like`...

We present distance measurements to 71 high redshift type Ia supernovae discovered during the first year of the 5-year Supernova Legacy Survey (SNLS). These events were detected and their multi-colour light-curves measured using the MegaPrime/MegaCam instrument at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT), by repeatedly imaging four one-square degree fields in four bands, as part of the CFHT Legacy Survey (CFHTLS).
Follow-up spectroscopy was performed at the VLT, Gemini and Keck telescopes to confirm the nature of the supernovae and to measure their redshift. With this data set, we have built a Hubble diagram extending to z=1, with all distance measurements involving at least two bands. Systematic uncertainties are evaluated making use of the multi-band photometry obtained at CFHT. Cosmological fits to this first year SNLS Hubble diagram give the following results:
OmegaM= 0.263 ±0.042;(stat) ±0.032;(sys)

Source (subscription)

Position(2000): RA 14:16:18.920 Dec +52:14:53.66 z = 0.244

Source (subscription)

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`Irony` actually does mean `metal like`...

Thanks, that sounds like exactly the story he was talking about. So the next question is, how did "conservative talk radio" get hold of it, since that's what he listens to?

Heh.

The amateur discovery the BA reported was very recent, but probably not in the news (I don't see it in Google News) and almost certainly not on talk-radio.

The February discovery by the NASA Swift satellite, was then soon also noticed by a Dutch amateur in his back yard, so there is an amateur in the story, but not Australian. NASA put out a press release on it with further news, end of August.

That overwrought blogger link I gave (that seems to require registration now) I ultra-skimmed, but it seemed to have some political bent.

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The bright supernova [type 1a] are thought to result from the detonation of accreted material on the surface of white dwarfs. Supernova resulting from core collapse [type II] are less luminous. See:
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/sc...upernovae.html

Predicting what remnant will remain after a core collapse supernova is difficult. A large amount of the mass is expelled into space. The usual remnant is a neutron star. These are typically not much more than a solar mass is size. Thus far, there is no good evidence that black holes can directly result from a core collapse. It appears more probable stellar mass black holes are formed via mergers [e.g., binary neutron stars].