Supernova

[Mike, Lord of the Spammers!]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7413160.stm

Bit of luck they had the lens pointing in more or less the right direction

Can you just imagine the level of destructive forces being let loose

It make this test (the largest bomb ever exploded) pail into insignificance...



Does anybody else feel a bit sick after watching that

[bobofish]

A little; I've seen the video before though, so that probably helped. The scary thing is that they dialed down the power of the bomb from a theoretical maximum of 100 megatons to a little under 50. Craziness.
It wasn't even practical though; not only did it not fit into a normal plane, but it was so powerful that whoever dropped it was toast at highest power; it'd do a lot of damage, but would be a suicide mission.

What's even scarier than a 50 megaton bomb is a 1 kilaton bomb; that's actually a bomb people would use.

As for the supernova, very very cool.
The cool thing is that we're all here because of a supernova somewhere closeby in the distant past. A big star already lived its natural life, and blew up; that blowup and its aftermath produced the heavy elements that we make multitools out of, and that we're made of. Not only, as the saying goes, are we all made of stardust, we're made of supernova dust.

[Mike, Lord of the Spammers!]

Very true mate

It is quite humbling too think of all the things that had to occur first for this planet to come into existance