A Supernova Produces More Energy Than Anything You Could Imagine
For a moment, let's move away from the earth because, despite the strength of nature here, the cosmos as a whole puts our little blue dot to shame. As a star erupts in its final moments, let's travel into the emptiness of the great beyond.
This is the largest explosion that has ever been recorded, as far as we know. Additionally, they have the potential to become large. Our attempts to make it seem understandable are still, quite honestly, ridiculously enormous. But it will at least provide some sort of perspective.
A supernova can have an energy discharge of up to 1044 joules. Therefore, the energy released at that single event will equal the energy emitted by the exploding star over the course of its preceding 10 billion years of existence. For a moment, visualize the sun burning as hot and brightly as it does for 10 billion years. We already discussed how much energy is produced every second, enough to last the planet for hundreds of thousands of years. During the supernova, all of that energy that had been stored for 10 billion years was released once more.
We can further break it down because it is still utterly ridiculous and difficult to comprehend. Scientists detected one particular supernova in 2015. The fading star, designated ASSASN-15lh, was 580 billion times brighter than our sun. The tsar bomba, the largest nuclear weapon ever tested, exploded with a detonation that was a billion trillion times more powerful. It was 30 times brighter than the Milky Way galaxy, which has 100 billion stars on its own.
- Power releases: 1044 joules
