Astronomers Watch as Star Explodes

Drawing oohs and aahs from astronomers that were peering through telescopes, a faraway star explodes and sets off one of he brightest supernovae ever seen.

This discovery was announced Monday by NASA as a lucky handful of astronomers viewed fuzzy remnants of this spectacular exploding star. This explosion was first discovered last fall, and it has scientists wondering if a similar celestial light show may one day light up the skies closer to Earth.

Astronomers used a variety of terrestrial based and spaced based telescopes in discovering this huge exploding star astronomers believe glowed roughly five times brighter than any other supernovae seen before.

Nathan Smith of the University of California at Berkeley, was the team leader of this group of astronomers that viewed the remnants of this giant star which was discovered last September by a graduate student in Texas.

"This one is way above anything else," Smith told The Associated Press. "It's really astonishing."

Smith said this star, SN2006gy, was freakishly massive because this star's mass was about 150 times the mass of our sun. Smith also said that because of how massive this star was, the resulting supernova was a special one that has never been seen before.

Unlike other stars that become black holes after they explode, the observations from the Chandra X-ray telescope indicate this giant star did not become a black hole which meant star SN2006gy actually skipped a step in the death of a star. So far, astronomers have not given an explanation as to way this star was able to skip this step by not becoming a black hole.

Most exploding stars have their brightness peaked for a couple of weeks before exploding, but star SN2006gy shone at its peak brightness for 70 days. Nathan Smith also said this star was shining at levels higher than other supernovae for several months prior to its explosion.

Star SN2006gy is located in a distant galaxy, and is about 240 million light years from Earth. Smith said another star similar to SN2006gy is only about 44 million light years away, and this star has the possibility to blow the same way. Smith thinks this star may blow any day or maybe even 50,000 years from now.

University of California at Berkeley astronomer David Pooley said if this closer star does explode in the near future; this explosion would not effect Earth. However; Pooley said the light given off by this explosion would be so bright that people would be able to read by the light of this star at night without the aid of artificial light. Pooley went on to say that only people in the Southern Hemisphere would be able to view this phenomenon.

Read more about this exploding star in Yahoo News