A stellar instability that occurs in very massive stars when gamma rays in the core become energetic enough to spontaneously create electron-positron pairs, reducing radiation pressure and causing the star to contract and eventually explode completely.
From 'pair' (referring to electron-positron pairs) and Latin 'instabilitas' meaning 'unsteadiness'. The concept was developed in the 1960s as nuclear physics advanced our understanding of stellar interiors.
Pair-instability supernovae completely destroy their parent stars, leaving no neutron star or black hole behind—just dispersing all their mass into space! These explosions may have been common in the early universe when the first generation of massive, metal-free stars formed.
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