Hypernovae

From Slackerpedia Galactica

Caffeinated novae.

Also, the name given to the (presumed) progenitors of long-soft Gamma-ray bursts, caused by the collapse of a very, very massive star at the end of its main sequence life. Where a run-of-the-mill massive star might collapse into a neutron star or black hole and blast the rest off into space in a Type-II Supernova, a hypernova forms a black hole which promptly begins eating itself from the inside out. Like quasars and their tiny stellar cousins, the black holes in hypernovae form jets which blast out of opposite sides of the star at very nearly the speed of light. The gamma ray burst occurs in that few moments when the relativistic jets reach the surface of the star and blast out into space. If we're looking right down the beam of the jet, we see a gamma ray burst.