The name "SN 2006gy" may not mean much to most folks, but it is the
recently discovered supernova, which as it turns out is the most
luminous supernova (or the most luminous single object of any kind, for
that matter) ever recorded by humans.
It may also be eerily similar, but millions of years less mature than
our strange galactic neighbor, Eta Carinae.
Roger Quimby, a grad student made the discovery of SN 2006gy with his
comparative-wimp of a telescope, an 18-inch automated telescope and
software he developed as a graduate student at the University of Texas.
This scope has a mirror which can be bought by any amateur for ~$2,500,
but can run itself unattended all night, looking for that "flash in the
pan". The story is fascinating in itself, as most any
novice-stargazer/programmer could have pulled it off.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0508/p01s04-usgn.html?page=1
That supernova is not in our galaxy, fortunately, yet it was powered by
the death of an extremely massive paired star, possibly just like the
Eta Carinae (EC) pair - which is not too far away from us to possibly
cause problems, if its radiation is ever focused, as it appears can
happen from an axial emissions - especially when the ejecta itself is
'strange' (to be explained)
The new supernova, like EC, was not located centrally in the core of its
particular galaxy either (in Perseus), nor was it near a black hole, but
was positioned out from the core, about where EC sits in our galaxy.
It is not yet clear what powers the radiated energy of 10^50 ergs, but
it was likely to be 56Ni decay for much of it. Earlier in our galaxy, in
the 19th century, the eruption of EC may have been almost as luminous-
and it is a 'repeat offender' regularly gaining and loosing mass in
hundred-sun quanta.
Four years ago, in an "off-topic" post to vortex, entitled "Stranger
than Fiction" I tried to make a speculative case for the proposition
that the recent dramatic surge in solar flares (back then) could be
linked time-wise to the brightest and most massive star in the Milky
Way, the aforementioned demon - Eta Carinae. Please excuse this long
rehash or some of that info.
... what makes EC such an interesting candidate for many earthly
problems, beyond the flares, is that it is reverberating to its own 5.5
year cycle with a companion 'object' - which cycle is ~half of our Sun's
11 year sunspot cycle ... and the bursts are fairly well coordinated...
but admittedly, EC is far too distant to affect our sun gravitationally,
or with any kind of (non-focused) photon emission.
In trying to comprehend how a star so distant might be able to influence
our sun, it is clear that no conventional explanation suffices... but
that a *focused* discharge moving at near lightspeed would suffice,
especially if the focusing were not exactly a random thing... that is to
say, not random because our own solar system is perfectly axially
aligned with the emitter.
Coincidental? No! that is: we could be located nearly perpendicular to
the exact axis of rotation of EC for a good reason - which is the
further implication: that EC may have expelled our entire system and
others billions of years in the past! It is/was that massive.
But, even if we limit the speculation to "just" a focused modern
discharge from EC, traveling fairly close to light-speed, what kind of
focused and accelerated mass fits these circumstances (disruptive enough
to cause sunspots or earthly volcanism) ?
Here is where things get really strange.
Quarks are the most elementary mass particles - pieces of matter that
can't be divided into anything smaller. Normal matter in the everyday
world is made of only two types of quark - called "up" and "down," but
there is a third variety, called "strange". Strange quarks in a
gravitational field can coagulate together, as do the up-and-down
variety in less massive fields.
The so-called "strange quark matter" (aka SQM or "strangelets") is very
dense... heavier even than neutron star material - a sphere the size of
a bacterium would weigh a ton, but it may possibly coexist (when highly
diluted) with regular matter and that is the LENR connection... or it
may accumulate on its own in dense but non-neutron-stars such as the
star known as RX J1856.5-3754, in the constellation of Corona Australis.
This star's mass and temperature profile means that it cannot be a
neutron star - it is too dense! yet not quite dense enough to form a
black hole. A similar object may be the companion object to EC.
The very same kind of quark-star may be involved with the new supernova
SN 2006gy !
Theorists have long suspected the existence of these very dense objects,
which are denser than neutron stars but are not quite massive enough to
become black holes... and they are pretty sure now that they have
identified their first few quark stars, which may not be composed of
100% strange quarks. Strange quarks can have short lifetimes in some
baryonic combinations, but surely are stable in others in high
percentage... which material may itself be accelerated out of the
active-star's axial polar region (whenever new material is captured, as
in the case of binaries).
So, the $64 question is: could "strange matter" being accelerated out
from EC and directly towards Earth be the possible connection to the
recent anomalous solar activity which has trailed, by several months,
the peak x-ray output of EC. If anomalous volcanism were to follow, soon
here on earth, it may also be from this same "strange matter" cause:
http://www.smu.edu/newsinfo/releases/01342.html
BTW, this cite above is a "must read" for anyone interested in
understanding the risks or prospects of a cosmic influence on earthly
catastrophe....as well as offering an explanation as to how some of this
strange quark material could have become imbedded with normal matter on
the interior of earth...
Although some theorists have suggested that most strange matter was
formed in the early Universe, remnants of this matter may still exist in
binary systems like EC, and even in some asteroids -plus, strange matter
may still be being born at the extreme-end of cosmic violence, such as
occurs on EC (its photon output exceeds 5 million suns) ... plus now we
have some tentative evidence of a putative mechanism where some of this
strange material gets deposited on earth.
Does this have any relevance for understanding cold fusion?
It is far too speculative to say that this strange matter connection is
even possible, but if advancing technology in the next few years does
present us with the means of proving that a few strange quarks do turn
up in asteroids, and that asteroid impact sites are the prime earthly
source of the precious metals like palladium... then??? there may well
be a connection worth investigating.
There are anecdotal reports of pure metals from different mines that
differ in density from the textbook standard...but... <gulp>... is that
just anecdotal, or is there a so-called "secret alloy" for LENR- an
unexpectedly 'heavy' form of Pd (from a particular mine) which seems to
be pure by all normal testing except that it is slightly more dense, due
perhaps to coming from only one mine which had been an asteroid impact site?
Well, let's leave it at that for now, but if a CF lab capable of doing
extremely precise density tests on an active LENR electrode, finds even
a slightly abnormal density shift for "active" cathodes, then it may not
be unreasonable to assume that somehow, some-way, a few of these strange
quarks have gotten into the palladium in some kind of stable baryonic
form...
...or maybe even something stranger...
Jones
