Re:How to expect a supernova (Score 2, Informative)

I havent read the article, shoot me ;-) But my guess is that they just look for the most massive star in the solar neighbourhood. The reasoning is:

1) a star can only use about 10% of the available hydrogen, before more rapid evolutionary mechanisms set is (ie before some of them go boom)

2) only 0.7% of the rest mass energy is turned into energy

3) the relation between luminosity (L) and mass (M) is:

- M proportional to L^4 (for massive stars)

Thus nuclear time scale (tn):

tn = 0.007*0.1*Mc^2/L ( = 10^10 year for the Sun)

for other massive stars:

tn = (M/Msun)/(L/Lsun) * 10^10 yr

= (M/Msun)/(M^4/Msun) *10^10yr

= M^-3 * 10^10 yr

so if one would find a 10 Msun star nearby, you could expect it to go boom in 10 million years. In other words, a cosmic 'blink of the eye'.