Supernovas are the most powerful and spectacular outbursts know in nature. What is called a type II supernova is due to the collapses of a massive star, at least eight times as a massive as the sun. That has used un its main nuclear fuel and produced a nickel-iron core. When this core can no longer support the pressure of the star’s outer layers, it’s collapses to form a neutron star of immense density. Over 2,500 million tons of neutron star material could be packed into a matchbox. Its temperature is around 10,000 million degrees centigrade. Multitudes of neutrons are produced in the collapsed star, which pass directly through the star into space, and this release of neutron causes the core to respond with a shock wave that moves outward. When it meets the material that is falling inward, the result is a catastrophic explosion. Sometimes most of the star’s material is blown away, leaving only a small, incredibly dense remnant that may be a neutron star or, in extreme cases, a black hole.
A supernova
is often more than 500 million times as luminous as the sun. A supernova remnant
(SNR) may detectable as a pulsar, an example of which is the Crab Nebula, known
to be a remnant of supernova observed in the year 1054. The 1987 supernova in
the Large Cloud of Magellan had a low peak luminosity by supernova standards,
only about 250 million times that of the sun. At its brightest the supernova
shone as a star between magnitudes 2 and 3, even though it was 1709,000
light-years away.