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> Such collisions produce a kilonova – an explosion 1,000 times more powerful than a standard supernova. However, one very speculative theory is that if one of
by irrational 3y ago
> Such collisions produce a kilonova – an explosion 1,000 times more powerful than a standard supernova. However, one very speculative theory is that if one of the neutron stars is highly magnetized – a magnetar – it could greatly amplify the power of the explosion even further to 100 times the brightness of a normal supernova.
Uh… maybe my reading comprehension is bad, but are “1,000” and “100” switched in this paragraph?
- elmomle 3y agoI think brightness (being distributed over there surface area of a sphere) scales with the square root of energy released.
- pfdietz 3y agoDifferent kinds of stellar explosions put different fractions of their output into visible light.
- irrational 3y agoYes, but it says "it could greatly amplify the power of the explosion even further". So... 100x is even further than 1000x? Or, is it 1000x and then a further 100x (or 100,000x?)
- darthoctopus 3y agoNope, you're not imagining things. The article actually quite wrong here: kilonovae are so named because they yield ~1000 times the peak luminosity of classical novae (~1e8 Lsun vs ~1e5 Lsun), not supernovae. For that matter, supernovae are themselves also named that way because their peak luminosities far exceed that of classical novae (with the most luminous recorded being >1e11 Lsun). I am not an expert on magnetar mergers in particular but according to the MNRAS paper that is cited, the transient in question, AT 2023fhn, gave a peak luminosity of about 4e8 Lsun (under certain assumptions about wavelength dependence, distance, etc) --- nowhere near supernova territory. Notably, the paper doesn't actually make the same claim about magnetars that the HN-posted article does.