Massive Star Burps, Then Explodes

gollum123 writes with a link to the Berkley site about an impressive star explosion that took place some tens of millions of years ago. We first caught sight of it in 2004, when there was a bright outburst, ahead of a massive supernova. "All the observations suggest that the supernova's blast wave took only a few weeks to reach the shell of material ejected two years earlier, which did not have time to drift very far from the star. As the wave smashed into the ejecta, it heated the gas to millions of degrees, hot enough to emit copious X-rays. The Swift satellite saw the supernova continue to brighten in X-rays for 100 days, something that has never been seen before in a supernova. All supernovae previously observed in X-rays have started off bright and then quickly faded to invisibility."

The question that leaves me with is...

[jimstapleton]

I wonder what it ate? I hope it wasn't the fish...

How do we know it wasnt a fart?

[krbvroc1]

Did the White House force the scientists to change their qualified 'fart' into a 'burb'? Investigations are needed.

Also, is there a term for Astronomers such as the one we use called 'Anthropomorphism?'

Re:supernova burps

[Anonymous Coward]

In other news, Uranus farts, then soils it's rings. Details at 11.

Title misleading.

[morgan_greywolf]

Phew. Before I RTFA'd, I thought they were talking about Rosie O'Donnell....

But monsieur....

[qazxswedc]

It's just a wafer-thin mint!

Burps then explodes

[Anonymous Coward]

Massive Star Burps, Then Explodes

First seen in 2004... the same year Marlon Brando died... coincidence?

This happens to me all the time..

[Cristofori42]

4) The star finally runs out of fuel and the core collapses

That's like a segmentation fault right?

Re:This happens to me all the time..

[Anon-Admin]

Sounds more like a core dump.

Re:The question that leaves me with is...

[darjen]

I wonder what it ate? I hope it wasn't the fish...

And there's no mention of it saying "excuse me" afterwards. I guess a little politeness is too much to ask from an exploding star...

That's what I call old news.

[tanguyr]

...impressive star explosion that took place some tens of millions of years ago...

Oooooooold news!

Burps, then Explodes?

[wildsurf]

"After dinner mint, sir?" [wikipedia.org]

"Oh, I couldn't eat another bite..." [youtube.com]

Massive star burps, explodes...

[diesel66]

I really don't know if I'd call Rosie O'Donnell a star...

At least I can start watching The View again. (Oh, boy!)

Ejecta, eh?

[bubbl07]

As the wave smashed into the ejecta, it heated the gas to millions of degrees, hot enough to emit copious X-rays.

Strange, that usually happens when my ejecta smashes into something else, not the other way around...

Oh wait...

Intriguing Alternate Possibilities

[StefanJ]

[ ] G'Thak Meld testing out new nova bomb. Gas / dust shell was actually a cloud of mothballed habitats and light collectors towed to the system to see how blast would effect a dyson shphere.

[ ] Elder Race equivalent of Jackson Pollock at work.

[ ] Young Earth creationists are right; like anything more distant that 6,000 LY, this was actually elaborate illusion created by God.

[ ] Extremem upper limit of Mentos / Diet Pepsi reaction now known.

Stefan

Download The MacGuffin Alphabet [sjgames.com].

Well...

[Overzeetop]

...this is slashdot, after all.

Re:The question that leaves me with is...

[Trails]

The star exploded after eating a mint. This surprised most astronomers, since the mint was wafer thin.

Re:Huh?

[Farmer Tim]

Before you try to critisize a religion or hell even a topic you should at least have some understanding of it.

And hurtling towards us from the decaying supernova remnants is a probe with a single mysterious inscription on the side:

"You must be new here."

Re:The question that leaves me with is...

[Columcille]

some of that tainted dog food, I'm sure.

Faster than light travel?

[Anonymous Coward]

I did a little calculating. At 10 million miles per hour, that means the pieces of the star are traveling at about 15 times the speed of light. I would think that would have been something to bring up in the article. I've been led to believe that nothing can go faster than light speed.

the plans

[f1055man]

for the hyperspace bypass have been on public display for some time now. They should have taken a greater interest in galactic affairs.

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am I strange for wondering if I'm being callous?