Hubble Sees Giant Gas Ribbon from Ancient Supernova
	The particular image featured here, showing what appears to be a large ribbon of gas floating through our galaxy, shows in fact only a small section of a much larger circular structure originating from a supernova explosion that took place somewhere in the spring of 1006 A.D., dubbed SN 1006. The progenitor star, a white dwarf, would have to been located about 7,000 light years away, while the optical emissions generated by the explosion w ... [read more >>]
	01 July 2008, 10:30GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Ultraviolet Flash Signals the Final Hours of a Star
	Although it was theoretically predicted that some of the most massive stars in the universe emit a bright signal in the ultraviolet spectrum just before going 'nova', this is the first time when such a flash of light is observed. Most of the supernova events occurring in the visible universe are usually seen by astronomers after the progenitor star is destroyed, making it very difficult to actually tell the properties of the star ... [read more >>]
	13 June 2008, 02:52GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Forgotten Galaxy Found to Be Supernova Remnant in Milky Way
	When it was first discovered in the 1980s the deceptive shape of the object known as G350.1-0.3 indicated that it was most likely a background galaxy. Since nobody ever bothered to study it more closely, the object remained forgotten until recently when observations with ESA XMM-Newton X-ray Space Observatory revealed a shocking discovery. Not only that G350.1-0.3 is not a galaxy, but it is also one of the brightest and youngest supernova ... [read more >>]
	11 June 2008, 05:55GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Black Holes Halt Star Formation with High-Energy Jets
	Nothing can escape the gravitational pull of black holes, not even light; they draw in every bit of matter and energy passing beyond their event horizon. According to a new study, some of the heaviest black holes in the universe, weighing up to several billion solar masses and found in the cores of active galactic nuclei, use this property to emit high-energy jets in order to stop the star formation process in their home galaxy. "T ... [read more >>]
	05 June 2008, 03:45GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Strange Objects Pop up While Probing for Dark Energy
	While searching for supernova explosions that occurred in the early universe, in hope to probe dark energy, astronomers discovered two new objects in the solar system, one orbiting somewhere between Uranus and Neptune while the other lurking in the outer regions of the system. The search for supernova explosions mostly involves finding faint light sources, albeit sometimes objects in the solar system get in the way and are accidentally dis ... [read more >>]
	04 June 2008, 04:08GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Bright Supernovae May Be Explained through Quark Stars
	Similar to neutron stars, quark stars are believed to be highly compact stellar objects that have been created during the supernova explosion of a relatively massive star. Theoretically, these objects may exist and could be formed only of elementary sub-atomic particles known as quarks, although none has been observed directly so far in the visible universe. Compared to a neutron star, quark stars are slightly more compact. For example, a ... [read more >>]
	04 June 2008, 03:27GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Nokia Lost Its SuperNovas
	Nokia has been showing off three new handsets lately, part of a new S40 series of phones that has a "very cosmic" name. The handsets are 7310 SuperNova, 7510 SuperNova and 7610 SuperNova, all of them being mid-end devices created to offer a simple mobile experience to end users. All good until now, but the problem is that, although the new handsets were presented on two of Nokia's official websites (the one from &l ... [read more >>]
	03 June 2008, 08:34GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Nokia Has Two New SuperNovas
	After Nokia 7310 Classic was renamed Nokia 7310 SuperNova, two new handsets that bear the SuperNova name have appeared: Nokia 7510 SuperNova and Nokia 7610 SuperNova. The handsets were not officially announced, but they both appear on the Nokia Poland website. ... [read more >>]
	02 June 2008, 02:59GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Nokia 7310 Classic is an Official SuperNova
	It didn't take long for Nokia to officially unveil its latest S40 handset, the 7310 Classic, and after several leaked details and images with the phone, we now have the confirmation that the device is real and it should hit the market in a short time. The Finnish compa ... [read more >>]
	31 May 2008, 03:53GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Light Echo Links Cassiopeia A to Progenitor
	Cassiopeia A is a supernova remnant located about 9,000 light years away from Earth which was created by a supernova explosion somewhere around the year 1680 and one of the brightest radio sources in the sky. Although modern observations taught much about the expanding remnant, one particular problem remained to be solved – what kind of supernova created the Cassiopeia A remnant. Light echoes originating from the explosion that took ... [read more >>]
	30 May 2008, 02:44GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

SRON Team Finds Mysterious Magnetar
	The star was in fact known for a long time to be a magnetar, albeit SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research astronomers have only recently discovered that it emits a strange high energy X-ray beam, sweeping across the surrounding medium as the star revolves around its axis. "I was looking for new sources of high energy X-rays on a celestial chart, made using the space telescope INTEGRAL. To our surprise, at the edg ... [read more >>]
	22 May 2008, 11:05GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Supernova Explosion Captured Live
	On January 9, researchers from Princeton University pointed NASA's Swift satellite in the direction of the NGC 2770 galaxy, hopping to the see afterglow of a supernova explosion known as SN 2007uy, which had occurred only one month before. Instead, the team got a struck of luck and captured a five minute X-ray burst, emitted by a new supernova explosion taking place just before their eyes. "For years we have dreamed of seeing ... [read more >>]
	22 May 2008, 03:38GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Milky Way's Youngest Supernova Discovered
	The newly found supernova remnant is the result of a stellar explosion that would have been seen from Earth some 140 years ago. The previous youngest supernova remnant found in the Milky Way was Cassiopeia A, resulted some 330 years ago. The current record holder, G1.9+0.3, represents to astronomers a missing link between supernovae and supernova remnants. According to them, the Milky Way should produce two or three supernova explosions ... [read more >>]
	15 May 2008, 02:54GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Operation Code Name 'Vanished Star'
	The vast majority of stars end their lives through supernova explosions while others, more massive, are thought unable to produce such explosions simply because they implode and collapse under their own weight only to produce a black hole. Since these particular types of stellar death don't generate brilliant emissions in the electromagnetic spectrum, none has ever been witnessed. This is about to change with the initiation ... [read more >>]
	10 May 2008, 03:44GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Blue Gene/P to Simulate Supernova Explosions
	The Argonne Blue Gene/P supercomputer may be the most powerful in the world but it will still require 22 million computational hours in order to simulate a process that in real life only takes 5 seconds to unfold. Robert Fisher and Cal Jordan from the University of Chicago's Center for Astrophysical Thermonuclear Flashes, will use Argonne's National Laboratory supercomputer to simulate phenomena occurring in extreme pressure and ... [read more >>]
	05 May 2008, 04:29GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

New Type of Stellar Objects Discovered
	Most stars in the universe, including our Sun, end their lives as white dwarfs, highly dense objects burning the leftovers of the nuclear fuel of what used to be the core of the star during most of its life. These objects can be so dense that they can pack a mass of about 1.5 times that of the Sun into a volume comparable to that of our planet. Pulsating white dwarfs, one class of such stars, have been first discovered more than two decade ... [read more >>]
	05 May 2008, 02:57GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Ancient Supernovae Appear to Age Slower
	A comparison between supernova explosions taking place today and those that occurred early in the life of the universe reveals that the latter appear to age slower, as if time was warped somehow. It may look as counterintuitive or even impossible to some of us, but in fact, this is confirmed by the inflation theory, stating that soon after the Big Bang the universe suffered a sudden expansion into space-time and is still expanding even tod ... [read more >>]
	29 April 2008, 02:51GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Solar System Stable for the Next 40 Million Years
	According to astrophysicists, the Sun is about 5 billion years old and will continue to shine for at least as much time before exploding into a supernova to destroy the whole solar system. Latest calculations reveal that the inner rocky planets, including Earth, will be destroyed long before the Sun even swells into a red giant star. To be more precise, uncertainties in the orbits of the planets ensure that the solar system will ... [read more >>]
	23 April 2008, 05:48GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Echoes From the Past Seen From Earth
	By using the Chandra X-ray Space Observatory and the XMM-Newton Space Observatory, astronomers were able to observe a light echo originating from a supernova explosion in the Large Magellanic Cloud, which was first observable from Earth nearly 400 years ago. The supernova remnant, dubbed SNR 0509-67.5, lies 160,000 light years away, meaning that it actually exploded more than 160,400 years ago. "We have a chance here to ... [read more >>]
	21 April 2008, 08:27GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Milky Way's Black Hole Awoke Three Centuries Ago
	With the help of observations made with NASA, JAXA and ESA's X-ray satellites, astronomers revealed that the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy, dubbed Sagittarius A*, suffered a massive outburst some three centuries ago. Sagittarius A* is about 4 million times more massive than the Sun, however the energy emitted while 'feeding' is several billion times weaker than the energy emitted by similar su ... [read more >>]
	16 April 2008, 02:52GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Brightest Explosion in the Universe Still Glowing
	Three weeks ago, the Swift satellite detected the brightest gamma-ray burst in the visible universe in a galaxy located more than 7 billion light years away from Earth. It is though that the supernova explosion could have been the result of the collapse of a massive star into a black hole, and that, during the explosion, its brightness outpowered that of the Milky Way by at least five million times. Yet, after three weeks, the ga ... [read more >>]
	12 April 2008, 03:47GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Do Supermassive Stars Explode?
	Previous stellar models showed very clearly that all stars must go through a supernova stage at the end of their lives; however, a new study reveals that supermassive stars may not be able to generate supernova explosions, but they would rather suffer a sudden gravitational collapse to turn into a black hole. But if a supermassive star would be able to 'go nova', then the explosion would be relatively mild in comparison to that o ... [read more >>]
	07 April 2008, 08:57GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Compressing Stellar Cores
	Nickel 56 is one of nickel's unstable isotopes which is not occurring naturally here on Earth. However, it is formed during the supernova explosion at the end of a star's life. Physicists from the IPN Orsay and the GANIL claim they have been able to compress the nucleus of Nickel 56 for the first time, in order to study how stars behave right when they are compressed, before the supernova explosion occurs. By doing so, researcher ... [read more >>]
	01 April 2008, 10:25GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

SN 2006bc Supernova Explosion
	NGC 2397 is just another spiral galaxy presenting prominent dust lanes along its arms; older stars in its central regions and newly forming stars in the spiral arms are shown blue in this image. The galaxy is located about 60 million light-years away from Earth, however the Hubble Space Telescope is still able to produce high enough resolution images of it, so that individual stars can be observed in the active star formation reg ... [read more >>]
	01 April 2008, 04:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

How Heavy Elements Take Shape
	Stars spend most of their lives burning hydrogen through nuclear fusion reactions to produce the energy required to remain stable as long as possible. By doing so, two hydrogen atoms are fused together to create a single helium atom and a fair amount of energy. However, at some point in time, the star will begin processing helium and other elements into heavier ones. During their lives, stars are able to produce all elements lighter than i ... [read more >>]
	21 March 2008, 06:47GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Massive Oxygen Shell Found in Magellanic Cloud
	The Large Magellanic Cloud is a small galaxy in the Local Group only 160,000 light years away from Earth. Recently, NASA's Chandra X-ray Space Observatory discovered a large supernova remnant that contains large amounts of oxygen. The N132D supernova remnant is part of an oxygen-rich remnant and the brightest feature observable in the Large Magellanic cloud. The oxygen found here on Earth most likely originated in similar su ... [read more >>]
	18 March 2008, 04:31GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Geminga Pulsar Linked to Weird Cosmic Ray Emission
	The Geminga pulsar was created about 340,000 years ago through the supernova explosion of a regular star, inside what is now called the Geminga supernova. It is well known that supernovae can provide with the required energy to accelerate energetic elementary particles into interstellar space, the so-called cosmic rays, however the process was never actually directly linked to supernovae. Now, a couple of astronomers from the Arcetri ... [read more >>]
	08 March 2008, 07:01GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Stellar Ray of Death Pointing Towards Earth
	It would certainly appear so, and considering that our galaxy is filled with at least 200 billion stars, it would be no surprise if one of these rays of death would decide to hit our planet some day. However, the subject of discussion here is a star dubbed WR104, located about 8,000 light years from Earth in the Sagittarius constellation. It was discovered eight years ago by an Australian astronomer at Sydney University, namely P ... [read more >>]
	06 March 2008, 03:48GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Death of a Star
	Take a good look at the picture of this nebula, this is how our solar system will look like in about 5 billion years or so. NGC 2371's glowing bubble of gas surrounding a white dwarf is a planetary nebula probably resulted in the explosion of an average star, relatively similar to the Sun. All that is left of the original central body is the core of the red giant after the ejection of the outer layers. The white dwarf remnant burns wi ... [read more >>]
	04 March 2008, 10:45GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Weird Pulsar Becomes Even Stranger
	X-ray images of the Kes75 supernova remnant shows it to house what seems to be a rapidly spinning neutron star, commonly known as a pulsar, which could have been created in the outcome of the supernova explosion. Lying at a distance of about 20,000 light years away from Earth, Kes75's pulsar located close to the center of the supernova remnant experiences rapid rotation, complemented by the creation of a powerful magnetic fi ... [read more >>]
	01 March 2008, 04:31GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Quantum Gases Express Stability in Pancake Shapes
	Interstellar clouds of dust and gas pulled together by gravitational forces often experience instabilities, that can result in spectacular explosions such as that of a supernova. Furthermore, if the individual atoms that compose the respective cloud of gas behave like tiny magnets, the same outcome could be experienced, as the magnetic forces of attraction between each other pressure towards a rapid compression of matter, thus the cloud of ... [read more >>]
	29 February 2008, 10:24GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Astronomers Discover Special Supernova
	Supernova SN 2007on was discovered last year in the location of what previously was a binary system, composed of at least one white dwarf and another stellar companion, most likely a regular slightly more massive star or possibly a second white dwarf. It is now known that the supernova is a Type Ia, meaning it was determined by the explosion of a white dwarf star. However, astronomers are now trying to determine the exact process ... [read more >>]
	14 February 2008, 03:46GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

PRIC Completes Installation of Unique Arctic Observatory
	The Polar Research Institute of China has completed the installation of the robotic observatory PLATeau only after two weeks from their arrival at the Dome Argus location on the Antarctic continent, the highest point of the Antarctic Plateau. PLATO has been built by the University of New South Wales, in Sydney, and is designed to work autonomously for most of the year. Why the Antarctic continent? Antarctica is one of the best spots on ... [read more >>]
	04 February 2008, 09:23GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Astronomers Predict the Existence of Strange Supernova Type
	Supernova explosions are generally triggered by a unbalance between the gravitational force produced by the star and the thermonuclear fusion reactions. Nonetheless, astronomers argue that such explosions could be determined through more stronger interactions, like those between a white dwarf and a medium size black hole. As the black hole pulls on the white dwarf with extreme gravitational force, the matter would become so compr ... [read more >>]
	30 January 2008, 04:49GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

White Dwarfs Stay Young by Eating Planets
	Imagine staying younger and fit for a longer time just by eating, instead of getting older and fat... if only this process would be available for all of us. Last week took place the annual American Astronomical Society meeting in Austin, Texas, where astronomers presented the results of some of the latest studies conducted in the astronomical field. Amongst these, a group of astronomers which detailed what they have observed nearly three y ... [read more >>]
	18 January 2008, 08:54GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Massive Neutron Stars vs. Black Holes
	The universe is practically littered with corpses of dead stars, or at least the visible part of the universe is. In fact, most of the matter forming the Earth comes from the bodies of one or more stars that shed part of their material at the end of their lives. However, not all the stars come to share the same fate. Many of the more massive stars turn into neutron stars or black holes during the process of supernova explosion. ... [read more >>]
	15 January 2008, 02:53GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Peanut-Shaped Nebula Remnant of Two Supernovae
	What seems to be a single object in the image provided by the Gemini Observatory is actually a structure formed by two separate different supernova explosions, which could have taken place about a few thousands years ago. The object located in the Large Magellanic Cloud was discovered in the early 1970 and classified as supernova remnant, originating in a single object that is composed of large quantities of gas and dust, ejected by an exp ... [read more >>]
	11 January 2008, 09:25GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Large Antimatter Cloud Discovered in Galactic Core
	ESA's gamma-ray space observatory, Integral, detected what seems to be a mysterious cloud of antimatter in the close vicinity of the Milky Way's central core, and its specific shape seems to point towards its origins, as previously there were no valid theories regarding the processes which could be held responsible for the creation of such large antimatter structures. Antimatter represents matter formed of antiparti ... [read more >>]
	10 January 2008, 05:42GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Danger! Supernova Explosion in Sight
	Supernovae explosions are some of the most powerful releases of energy in the universe known to man. A possible explosion of the Sun, predicted to occur in about 5 billion years in the future, would most likely destroy all the life on Earth, and possibly the entire solar system. Luckily, until this event would take place, the human race would have evolved enough, so that the technology would enable us to move to a more friendly solar syst ... [read more >>]
	08 January 2008, 08:48GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Colossal Cosmic Explosion Appears out of Nowhere
	Representing one of the brightest stellar explosions seen this year, the GRB 070125 was discovered on the 25th of January with the Palomar robotic space telescope, operated by the Inter-Planetary Network. It is not the intensity of the glow that seems to present too much interest to astronomers since supernova explosions several times greater in brightness have been observed over the years, but rather the location where the death of the st ... [read more >>]
	19 December 2007, 04:00GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Neutron Stars Become Even Stranger
	Once believed to be a type of black holes, neutron stars usually form during the late stages of a star's life. They have masses ranging from 1.4 to 2.1 times that of the Sun and compact the matter in a volume from 20 to 40 kilometers in diameter, causing all matter that falls on their surface to disintegrate into elementary particles. It is believed that protons and electrons inside them merge to create neutron particles, thus their w ... [read more >>]
	18 December 2007, 05:58GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Orion Nebula Houses a Star Factory
	Nebulae inside the Milky Way galaxy often receive high amounts of hot gas ejected by stars inside, which makes them emit radiation in the X-ray spectrum. Discovering these X-ray signatures could provide new information about young stars, which may hold secrets about the solar system and the planetary formation. The Orion nebula is situated right below the stars that form the famous belt of the constellation Orion. It is the brightest n ... [read more >>]
	30 November 2007, 06:42GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Explode, Collapse, Repeat
	SN 2006gy is the brightest supernova ever observed. It was first discovered last year, in the constellation Perseus, about 240 million light years away, when during an explosion it displayed a luminosity one hundred times more than a typical supernova. Since there is no theoretical explanation for this event, two teams of researchers have developed two competing theories. The team led by Stan Woosley at the University of California, San ... [read more >>]
	15 November 2007, 03:16GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

What Really Killed the Dinosaurs?
	The first dinosaur fossils were recognized in the nineteenth century, and quickly began to represent a major attraction for museum visitors, and spawned a whole culture among children and adults, featuring in different movies and best-seller books. Dinosaurs formed one of the most successful groups ever to live on Earth. They have dominated the Earth's ecosystem for more than 160 million years only till they suddenly dis ... [read more >>]
	05 November 2007, 02:58GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Two White Dwarfs Cause a Supernova Explosion
	The massive explosion of the Supernova 2006gz was at first thought to have been the death of a star, as it usually occurs, but high contents of heavy elements seem to shatter this idea. Located in a spiral galaxy named IC 1277, about 300 million light years away in the Hercules constellation, SN 2006gz shows strong evidence of an even more cataclysmic event. The merging of two white dwarfs. A white dwarf is the remnant of a star too low ... [read more >>]
	02 November 2007, 04:19GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Chandra Reveals New Details of Star's Afterlife
	Astronomers can now better understand how some stars die and how they disperse elements into the next generation of stars and planets. New images from G292.0+1.8 – one of three supernova remnants in the Milky Way that contain large amounts of oxygen at a distance of 20,000 light years – show rapid expansion, intricate structure, debris field that contains (along with oxygen) other elements such as neon and silicon created in the star' ... [read more >>]
	26 October 2007, 06:31GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Astronomers Discover the Power Behind Massive Supernova
	Not all stars end in a supernova, but those which do produce one of the most impressive and mysterious phenomena of the Universe, which, although intensively studied in the last decades, is far from being completely understood. A team of scientists at the European Southern Observatory now say they found out what fueled a spectacular supernova spotted last year and caused a massive explosion more than a billion times brighter ... [read more >>]
	13 July 2007, 05:48GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The First Double Supernova Ever Recorded
	The earliest recorded supernova, SN 185, was viewed by Chinese astronomers in 185 AD. Modern day scientists think they have pretty much figured its formation mechanisms. But it seems the Universe still holds some surprises. For the first time, NASA's Swift satellite observed two supernovae faring up in a distant and obscure galaxy in the constellation Hercules. They called it a double supernova because two such events w ... [read more >>]
	27 June 2007, 10:48GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Astronomers Discovered Jets of Matter Traveling through Space at Nearly the Speed of Light
	In a vacuum, light travels at a speed of nearly 300,000 km/s (186,282 mi/s) and it's generally believed that matter cannot exceed this speed. Recently, astronomers discovered matter traveling at more than 99.999% the speed of light. It's the fastest speed ever recorded in the case of matter in the universe, and it has been achieved by jets of material shooting out of dying stars. Massive stars eventually run of hydr ... [read more >>]
	14 June 2007, 17:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Giant Star Died Twice
	A massive star, burning brighter than our Star, eventually depletes its helium in the core, and without any source of heat to balance the gravity, the core collapses until it reaches nuclear densities. This produces a supernova explosion. For the first time, astronomers discovered a star that seems to have died twice. They noticed two separate explosions that were part of the fiery death of one of the most massive stars known ... [read more >>]
	14 June 2007, 16:56GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia