According to scientists from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), it would appear that Type Ia supernovae can arise from two independent mechanisms. Until now, astronomers believed that these objects could only be created through a single process, and debated what that process was.
Over the years,... |
7 May 2012
10:28 GMT |
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A composite image of the oldest known supernova, called RCW 86, has just been released by NASA. The photograph contains X-ray data from the NASA Chandra X-ray Observatory and the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton Observatory, as well as infrared data from the NASA Spitzer Space Telescope and the Wide-Field Infr... |
14 February 2012
02:17 GMT |
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The NASA Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), which was outfitted to the satellite in 2009, was recently able to observe the oldest-known instance of a massive stellar explosion, a Type Ia supernova that blew up more than 9 billion light-years away.
What this means is that the event took place ... |
13 January 2012
04:54 GMT |
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Using the NASA Spitzer Space Telescope, astronomers were recently able to answer some of the most difficult questions related to the supernova RCW 86. Chinese astronomers were the first to detect it in 185 AD, and the object is widely accepted as the oldest documented supernova event.
In the new investigation, expe... |
25 October 2011
03:32 GMT |
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For several years, astrophysicists have been saying that Type Ia supernova events are caused by white dwarf stars accreting mass until they exceed stability thresholds, which caused them to blow up. Now, a new investigation shows that the explosions are in fact produced by white dwarf mergers.
This class of cosmi... |
5 October 2011
06:09 GMT |
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A group of astronomers at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark Dark Cosmology Center, led by Darach Watson, proposes a new way of keeping tabs on cosmic distances. Their approach no longer relies on standard “cosmic candles” as reference points, but shifts on active galactic nuclei (AGN).
Standard c... |
26 September 2011
18:01 GMT |
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Astronomers have just discovered that the Milky Way may be laden with ticking time bombs, old stars that are only kept going by the fact that they spin at high speeds. Once they drop below a certain threshold, there is a significant risk that they could blow up, causing massive destruction all around.Not all stars po... |
7 September 2011
05:59 GMT |
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Astronomers were recently able to identify what they consider to be the most likely formation mechanism for dramatic cosmic events known as Type Ia supernovae. The finding goes a long way towards clearing the mystery associated with these objects. Past studies had suggested that these events occur when a white dwarf ... |
22 March 2011
06:54 GMT |
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Astronomers have recently determined that some of the supernova explosions we see in the night skies are in fact triggered by stars known as white dwarfs merging in a violent, cataclysmic event. The findings can help explain why some of the massive blasts that follow, which are so precise that they are currently used... |
8 January 2010
10:42 GMT |
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Astronomers working with the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT), in Chile, have recently discovered a double star system, which appears to be housing a “vampire” star. The peculiar formation became visible to telescopes in 2000, after the star underwent an outburst that ... |
17 November 2009
11:05 GMT |
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