How could a star 150 times as massive as the sun explode, and not become a black hole?

Question

I came across a line in the yahoo headlines stating that the brightest and biggest supernova ever witnessed by human civilization has many extraordinary traits, including that it did not form into a black hole... This doesn't make sense to me. Anybody have an explanation?

Billy, as far as i know nuetron stars don't collapse and not become black holes. Once degenerate nuetron pressure is exceeded no known force in nature can prevent a singularity from forming.

Maybe you can illustrate your points a little bit clearer, because as it stands i don't know what your trying to say.



heres the link to the article that sparked my question;

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070507/ap_on_sc/supernova

Haratu, your point holds in some instances, there is alot of lost material, however it only takes about 8 or so solar masses in a collapse to form a singularity. The star which astronomers are looking at now is 150 solar masses, and black holes are expected to result from supernova's with less than half that mass easily. This is an oddity, I've never heard of it.

Answer 1

The theory is that in extremely massive stars the heavy elements in the core can fuse all at once, causing the star to explode outward rather than implode. I don't know the physics of it, but it involves the production of gamma radiation so energetic the photons convert into matter-antimatter pairs.

Answer 2

With a 150 solar mass star the remnant would be so large that it would go through lower stages without stopping.
It would fall through a white dwarf then to a neutron star then collapse the neutron star which would explode and purge the inner area of matter.
My contention is the a black hole cannot exist, and that a neutron star [ 12 km in diameter] of 2.5 solar masses will collapse to a diameter of 6 km and then enter a quantum state that produces energy [E=MC2] in 100,000 of a second.
This scenario would happen to any star greater than 100 solar masses.

Answer 3

When a sun explodes it discards a lot of its material. Think of a water balloon exploding... all the water goes everywhere.

A black hole is formed when the sun then collapses on itself... following the example of a water balloon, it would be as if the balloon exploded and then all the drops connected together to form a solid puddle.

Those experienced with water balloons know that the water usually sprays everyehere and rarely collapses back to a puddle... likewise with an exploding star, it rarely becomes a black hole.

Answer 4

I'd sure like to read that headline..! A star with as little as 10 times our sun's mass is expected to end up either as a black hole or at least as a neutron star. 150 solar masses and not end up as either of those is *highly* unusual.