So, a supernova is a star going *BANG.* It’s either a supermassive star undergoing its final collapse and rebound, or a white dwarf of neutron star stripping atmosphere off a co-orbiting regular star until enough hydrogen has built up on the surface to undergo a fusion flash, or two neutron stars colliding… something like that. it’s supposed to be a relatively quick flash, then a fade into some kind of dimness. What it’s NOT supposed to be is an explosion brighter than a billion suns that lasts *years.*

Bizarre 3-Year-Long Supernova Defies Our Understanding of How Stars Die

The event occurred in a small irregular galaxy some 500 million lightyears away. interestingly, another supernova was detected in the same spot in 1954, but it’s difficult to suggest that they are necessarily the same object… might have been another supernova within the same galaxy. But *this* event has had an extremely unusual light curve, indicating something horrifically powerful and ridiculously long-lasting:

Compare the areas under the curves. Not only is this thing five or so times brighter than it should be, it’s lasting perhaps five or ten times longer. But the spectrum of the light curve indicates it’s a standard Type II-P supernova, which shouldn’t act like this.

To me this event seems like an atomic bomb. Not, y’know, like an actual atomic bomb, but instead one of the atomic bombs described by H.G. Wells in his 1914 novel “The World Set Free.” his atomic bombs were utterly unlike what actually wound up appearing. His A-Bombs were more like magical reactors: they burned for *years* emitting heat, light and radiation. In essence, his atomic bombs were reactors in meltdown. Perhaps that’s what’s going on with this supernova… instead of “bang” and its done, there’s some sort of “meltdown” going on. What that could possibly be, I’ve no idea.