Latest Supernovae Stories
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online A rare explosion from a rotating star may have created the most recent black hole formed in the Milky Way galaxy. Astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory claim that matter was ejected at high speeds along the poles of a rotating star, creating a supernova remnant, W49B, which may contain a young black hole. "W49B is the first of its kind to be discovered in the galaxy," said Laura Lopez, who led the study at the...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online New observations have led to a better understanding of supernovae, which could one day lead to even better forecasts for the cosmic events. Type II supernovae form when a massive star collapses, sending off a giant explosion from the dying star. Having a better way to predict these events would allow astronomers to study them in their earliest stages. Astronomers wrote in the journal Nature this week that they have observed an...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online According to a new study, black hole cosmic radiation blasted into the Earth back in the 8th century. Japanese astrophysicist Fusa Miyake discovered last year clues for the strange event located in the rings of ancient cedar trees that dated back to either 774 or 775 AD. Researchers teamed together to determine what had caused the surge in carbon-14 in the rings and found no evidence of a supernova, as they had expected. The...
[ Watch the Video: A Microquasar Makes a Giant Manatee Nebula ] redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports - Your Universe Online Thanks to a powerful National Science Foundation (NSF) telescope and an observation made by one National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) official, the W50 nebula located approximately 18,000 light years away has a new name – the Manatee Nebula. Images of the massive supernova remnant captured recently by the NSF’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA)...
April Flowers for redOrbit.com -- Your Universe Online Astronomers announced this week that a massive star they have been watching repeatedly mimic a supernova since 2009 has finally exploded for real. The team, led by the University of Arizona, presented their findings to the American Astronomical Society meeting and they will be published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. This new study provides critical information on the final death throes of massive stars in...
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Have you ever wished for a time machine to be able to travel to the distant past? What about a "Wayback Television Set" that would allow you to watch an entire month of ancient prehistory in real time? Berkeley Lab’s David Rubin gave just such a scenario to attendees at the American Astronomical Society meeting this week when he unveiled the discovery of a striking astronomical object. Rubin announced a Type Ia supernova with a...
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Wanting to bridge the gap between what is known about exploring stars and the remnants left behind thousands of years later, two University of Texas at Arlington students and their colleagues are trying something new – using SNSPH, a complex computer code developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The two students, Carola I. Ellinger, a post-doctoral researcher at UT Arlington, and Sangwook Park, an assistant professor in the...
redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports - Your Universe Online NASA has released a pair of new images captured by the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) – one depicting a pair of black holes lurking inside a spiral galaxy, and the other featuring a look at the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A. The two pictures, which were revealed Monday at the American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting in Long Beach, California, “showcase why NuSTAR is giving us an unprecedented look at the...
WASHINGTON, Jan. 7, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, set its X-ray eyes on a spiral galaxy and caught the brilliant glow of two black holes lurking inside. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) The new image is being released Monday along with NuSTAR's view of the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A, at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Long Beach, Calif. "These new images showcase why...
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Science teachers in grade school sometimes hand out "mystery boxes," which contain ramps, barriers and a loose marble. Rotating the marble and feeling it hang up or drop, the students begin to deduce the contents of the box. Scientists who are trying to understand why tiny particles rain down from space face a similar dilemma, but on a much grander scale. Their mystery box is a hundred thousand light years across, and the only clues...
Latest Supernovae Reference Libraries
White Dwarf -- A white dwarf is a a star supported by electron degeneracy. A star like our Sun will become a white dwarf when it has exhausted its nuclear fuel. Near the end of its nuclear burning stage, such a star goes through a red giant phase and then expels most of its outer material (creating a planetary nebula) until only the hot (T > 100,000 K) core remains, which then settles down to become a young white dwarf. A typical white dwarf is half as massive as the Sun, yet only...
Supernova Remnant -- A supernova remnant (SNR) is made up of the materials left behind by the gigantic explosion of a star in a supernova. There are two possible routes to this end: either a massive star may cease to generate fusion energy in its core, and collapse inward under the force of its own gravity, or a white dwarf star may accumulate material from a companion star until it reaches a critical mass and undergoes a similar collapse. In either case, the resulting supernova...
Supernova -- A supernova is a star that increases its brightness drastically within a matter of days, making it appear as if a "new" star was born (hence "nova"). The "super" prefix distinguishes it from a mere nova, which also involves a star increasing in brightness, though to a lesser extent and through a much different mechanism. Astronomers have classified supernovae in several classes, according to the lines of different elements that appear in their spectra. The first...
Stellar Evolution -- Stellar evolution is the process of formation, life, and death of stars. It is one of the major topics of cosmogony. Star Birth and Life A star starts out as an enormous cloud of gas and dust many light-years across. Star formation begins when the cloud begins to condense under its own gravity. The processes that initiate this contraction are not fully understood. The cloud fragments fuse into stellar mass clouds known as protostars. Protostars do not emit...
Nova -- A nova is an enormous nuclear explosion caused by the accretion of hydrogen onto the surface of a white dwarf star. When a white dwarf has a close companion star, the companion will often begin to have its outer atmosphere drawn away from it by the white dwarf's gravity as the companion star ages and expands into a red giant. The gases so captured consist primarily of hydrogen and helium, the two principle constituents of matter in the universe. The gases are compacted on the...
