Subscribe:
RSS feed
"Everything should be as simple as it is, but not simpler", Albert Einstein
Browsing All posts tagged under »Supernova«
How Much Is a Supernova Worth?
If I had a nickel for every nickel you could make from the nickel in supernova SN1999em, I’d be very, very, VERY rich. If I were you, dear BABloggee, I’d be thinking, “What the what?” So let me explain. Well, let me explain in a minute. First, I want to introduce you to the gorgeous […]
Mysterious star deaths are really mergers in disguise
December 14, 2012
by Stuart Clark SOAP operas have nothing on supernovae. A charlatan star that appeared to explode earlier this year may have faked its own death to unite with a secret companion. If so, it joins a growing cast of oddball stars suspected to be the products of stellar mergers, which have the potential to change […]
Hubble Spotted a Supernova in NGC 5806
August 31, 2012
A new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows NGC 5806, a spiral galaxy in the constellation Virgo (the Virgin). It lies around 80 million light years from Earth. Also visible in this image is a supernova explosion called SN 2004dg. The exposures that are combined into this image were carried out in early […]
Cygnus Loop Nebula
March 23, 2012
Wispy tendrils of hot dust and gas glow brightly in this ultraviolet image of the Cygnus Loop nebula, taken by NASA’s Galaxy Evolution Explorer. The nebula lies about 1,500 light-years away, and is a supernova remnant, left over from a massive stellar explosion that occurred between 5,000 to 8,000 years ago. The Cygnus Loop extends […]
The Enigmas of Supernova 1987A
March 15, 2012
Supernova 1987A exploded on February 23, 1987 in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Because of its relative proximity to us (a mere 168,000 light years) SN 1987A is by far the best-studied supernova of all time. Immediately after the discovery was announced, literally every telescope in the southern hemisphere started observing this exciting new object. The […]
Preview of a Forthcoming Supernova
February 24, 2012
NASA’s Hubble Telescope captured an image of Eta Carinae. This image consists of ultraviolet and visible light images from the High Resolution Channel of Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys. The field of view is approximately 30 arcseconds across. The larger of the two stars in the Eta Carinae system is a huge and unstable star […]
Twenty-five years after supernova 1987A
February 24, 2012
While primitive humans of the Middle Paleolithic hunted prey and sheltered in caves in Africa, a distant star eighteen times more massive than the Sun, located faraway in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) endured a catastrophic collapse as it reached the end of its life. As the star caved in, its outer layers rebounded off […]
Space Diamonds Reveal Supernova Origins
February 15, 2012
Collisions in space may be behind mysterious diamonds found in meteorites. By Brian Jacobsmeyer, ISNS Contributor Inside Science News Service Space diamonds may now be an astrophysicist’s best friend. For years, scientists have found DNA-sized diamonds in meteorites on Earth. New research suggests that these diamonds spring from violent cosmic collisions, which may help scientists […]
The chemistry of exploding stars
January 20, 2012
Meteorite contains evidence of formation of sulfur molecules derived from the ejecta of a supernova explosion Fundamental chemical processes in predecessors of our solar system are now a bit better understood: An international team led by Peter Hoppe, researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, has now examined dust inclusions of the […]
Hubble Breaks New Ground with Discovery of Distant Exploding Star
January 11, 2012
WASHINGTON — NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has looked deep into the distant universe and detected the feeble glow of a star that exploded more than 9 billion years ago. The sighting is the first finding of an ambitious survey that will help astronomers place better constraints on the nature of dark energy, the mysterious repulsive […]
Closest Type Ia Supernova in Decades Solves a Cosmic Mystery
December 14, 2011
Early close-ups of a Type Ia supernova allow Berkeley Lab scientists and their colleagues to picture its progenitor and infer how it exploded Type Ia supernovae (SN Ia’s) are the extraordinarily bright and remarkably similar “standard candles” astronomers use to measure cosmic growth, a technique that in 1998 led to the discovery of dark energy […]
A tiny flame shines light on supernovae explosions
November 22, 2011
Starting from the behavior of small flames in the laboratory, a team of researchers has gained new insights into the titanic forces that drive Type Ia supernova explosions. These stellar explosions are important tools for studying the evolution of the universe, so a better understanding of how they behave would help answer some of the […]
NASA Telescopes Help Solve Ancient Supernova Mystery
October 24, 2011
A mystery that began nearly 2,000 years ago, when Chinese astronomers witnessed what would turn out to be an exploding star in the sky, has been solved. New infrared observations from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, reveal how the first supernova ever recorded occurred and how its shattered remains […]
G299.2-2.9, a Middle-Aged Supernova Remnant
October 12, 2011
G299.2-2.9 is an intriguing supernova remnant found about 16,000 light years away in the Milky Way galaxy. Evidence points to G299.2-2.9 being the remains of a Type Ia supernova, where a white dwarf has grown sufficiently massive to cause a thermonuclear explosion. Because it is older than most supernova remnants caused by these explosions, at […]
Nucleosynthesis of r-Process Elements by Jittering Jets in Core-Collapse Supernovae
October 4, 2011
Oded Papish, Noam Soker We calculate the nucleosynthesis inside the hot bubble formed in the jittering-jets model for core collapse supernovae (CCSNe) explosions…. Read more: http://arxiv.org
New pic: SN2011fe in M101
October 2, 2011
If you were wondering what was going on with the bright new supernova in the spiral galaxy M101, it’s now getting very difficult to observe due to its proximity to the Sun in the sky. But happily my friend, the accomplished astronomer Travis Rector, got a shot of it using the Mayall 4-meter telescope at […]
Astronomers Discover New Standard Candle
September 26, 2011
A way to measure the distance of active galactic nuclei could change the way astronomers think about the Universe and how it is expanding One of the trickiest problems in astronomy is the measure of distance. In theory, distance should be simple to work out. If you know the intrinsic brightness of an object, a […]
Dimension-hop may allow neutrinos to cheat light speed
September 23, 2011
A CERN experiment claims to have caught neutrinos breaking the universe’s most fundamental speed limit. The ghostly subatomic particles seem to have zipped faster than light from the particle physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland, to a detector in Italy. Fish that physics textbook back out of the wastebasket, though: the new result contradicts previous measurements […]
Supernovas and Neutrinos
September 20, 2011
Matt Strassler Supernovas are some of nature’s most common and powerful nuclear bombs. They are also among the most useful for particle physicists and astrophysicists alike. In “core-collapse” supernovas, a huge number of protons are converted, by the absorption of electrons, into neutrons, with the consequent emission of neutrinos. [Powering this process is one of […]
How to See a Recently Discovered Supernova (PTF11kly or SN2011fe)
September 3, 2011
Skywatchers — grab your binoculars and telescopes, and head for some clear dark skies. A new supernova has been discovered near the Big Dipper. At a mere 21 million light-years away from Earth, a relatively small distance by astronomical standards, the supernova is appearing so bright that Earthlings may be able to see it with […]
New Supernova Remnant Lights Up
June 10, 2011
Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope are witnessing the unprecedented transition of a supernova to a supernova remnant, where light from an exploding star in a neighboring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud, reached Earth in February 1987. Named Supernova 1987A, it was the closest supernova explosion witnessed in almost 400 years. The supernova’s close proximity […]
Meet the league of extraordinary supernovae
June 9, 2011
Some of the brightest and strangest objects to grace the skies in recent years are members of a new class of supernovae. Just how they are formed remains a mystery, but their brilliance should make it easier to observe their dim host galaxies. Supernovae come in different varieties. Type Ia blasts, for example, show no […]
A New Supernova Sighted in Nearest Galaxy to Milky Way
June 7, 2011
Exploding stars are the “factories” that produce all the heavy elements found, among other places, in our bodies. In this sense, we are all stardust. These exploding stars – supernovae – are highly energetic events that can occasionally light up the night sky. Such an explosion generally involves disruption in the balance between gravity – which pulls […]
March 22, 2013
0