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Stories about: supernovae


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We Are Missing Out on Many Novae Explosions

A new investigation has demonstrated that astronomers and astrophysicists are missing numerous novae events, sometimes even if they are of very high magnitude. Observing more of these events could yield more insight into how they take place, and why.The conclusions belongs to a research conducted by Liverpool John Mo...

25 November 2010
11:05 GMT

ESO Gets 3D View of Supernova Explosion

When massive stars reach the end of their burning cycle, they explode in violent cosmic events known as supernovae. According to the latest computer models, just before the stars violently expel their atmospheres, they become very turbulent, which makes the explosion spread out matter unevenly in the former star'...

4 August 2010
06:46 GMT

Supernova Explosions to Get New 3D Views

Supernova events are some of the most energetic and powerful things that can go on in the Universe. When massive stars that reach the end of their burning cycle explode, they produce such fierce radiation emission and effects, that they briefly outshine entire galaxies. The death of such stars is called a supernova, ...

3 June 2010
05:17 GMT

Of Supernovae and the Faith of the Universe

Fergus Wilson, a theoretical astrophysics student from the University of Leicester, in the United Kingdom, is currently developing a new technique for modeling fluids that he says could hold the key towards uncovering a number of mysteries still related to studies of the Universe. The method he's developing is a...

27 May 2010
10:58 GMT

Explanation for Milky Way's 'Clouds' Found

A team of scientists from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) believe it may have found a new explanation for the peculiar, cloud-like structures that hover above the plane of our galaxy. Astronomers and astrophysicists have been trying to make sense of these formations for many years, and the team now pr...

27 May 2010
04:55 GMT

New Type of Stellar Death Possibly Identified

When massive stars several times heavier than our Sun reach the end of their burning cycle, their life ends in violent explosions known as supernovae. When this happens, massive amounts of energy and radiation are produced, creating light signatures that briefly outshine entire galaxies. Thus far, astrophysicists bel...

20 May 2010
05:46 GMT

Supernova-Core Collapse Simulated in 3D

When massive stars reach the end of their burning cycle, they tend to blow up in massively large explosions called supernovae. As they do so, they release so much energy that they briefly outshine entire galaxies, featuring billions of stars. Due to the complex nature of the processes involved in such an event, compu...

14 May 2010
09:44 GMT

New Insight into How Neutron Stars Cool

Using telescope data spanning an entire decade, researchers have recently compiled a new dataset on how the renowned supernova remnant Cassiopeia A's neutron star is evolving over time. The celestial body is the youngest known such formation to date, and so peering into the interior of this super-dense star is s...

15 April 2010
16:01 GMT

Experts Get a Chance to Look at Supernova Dust

Supernovae are without any doubt some of the most energetic outbursts of energy in the entire Universe. At times, they can blow up so fiercely, that they produce flashes of light which briefly outshine entire galaxies, as viewed from our vantage point. They produce vast amount of radiation, promote the development of...

30 March 2010
02:30 GMT

New Supernova Data Could Change the World

Supernovae are arguably among the most important structures in the known Universe. In addition to representing some of the most violent and beautiful bursts of energy, they also help astronomers calculate distances in space, and determine basic data about how fast the Universe is expanding, how old it is, and what di...

16 March 2010
17:01 GMT

Massive Galaxy Exploded Every Second for Millions of Years

An international group of researchers has recently determined that one of the earliest galaxies in the known Universe has had its star-forming abilities regulated by powerful, repeated blasts. The celestial structure was observed by astronomers as it looked some 3 billion years after the Big Bang, a time when the Uni...

9 March 2010
08:48 GMT

Cosmic-Ray Source Identified

Cosmic rays are streams of protons that occasionally slam into the planet's atmosphere at speeds close to that of light. While their effects have been identified and studied extensively, astrophysicists have had a hard time figuring out where they originate. A leading explanation is that supernovae somehow produ...

16 February 2010
03:32 GMT

Explaining a Supernova That Shouldn't Have Existed

Regularly, when Earth-based telescopes surveying the skies take notice of a supernova explosion somewhere in the Universe, they record a tiny flash of light, which then shortly disappears, as the remnants of the star spread away from its core. The Nearby Supernova Factory survey, at the Palomar Observatory in Califor...

15 February 2010
06:16 GMT

NGC 3603 Reveals 'Baby Star'

A series of new astronomical observations, conducted on the nearby nebula NGC 3603, has revealed the very rare sight of a massive star at the beginning of its burning cycle. This is one of the rarest occasions when something like this becomes available for study. Most infant massive stars spend their youth enveloped ...

3 February 2010
17:01 GMT

Suzaku Discovers Supernova 'Fireball' Fossils

Astronomers using the Japan-US Suzaku telescope have recently discovered fossilized traces in two supernova remnants, which bear witness to the tremendous fireballs that formed at the two locations just after the stars that went supernova exploded. When such a cosmic event occurs, experts believe that the temperature...

11 January 2010
01:31 GMT

White Dwarf Mergers Trigger Supernova Blasts

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

Antimatter Causes Powerful Stellar Explosions

Astronomers propose a new theory related to the core of very large stars. They say that, when the inner parts of such a celestial body become too hot, they start forming matter-antimatter pairs. Naturally, when this happens, the basic laws of physics dictate that a violent annihilation between the two occurs, and thi...

5 January 2010
16:01 GMT

Nearby Supernova Could Destroy Earth

Being the massive galaxy that it is, the Milky Way contains a little bit of everything. This includes highly explosive white dwarf stars that explode periodically at relatively stable intervals. Such a celestial body, which is long overdue for its next powerful eruption, lies closer to our planet than astronomers fir...

5 January 2010
01:50 GMT

Age of the Solar System Possibly Miscalculated

Astronomers may need to recalculate the age of our solar system, new scientific measurements show. According to some experts, it may be that a trusted equation, which is regularly used in calculations on such issues, may have made an assumption that is not entirely true. The new calculations are likely to lead to a n...

4 January 2010
04:49 GMT

Voyager Figures Out Why the Local Fluff Exists

As the planets swirl around the Sun, the entire solar system is passing at this point through a huge interstellar cloud called the Local Fluff. The problem with this is the fact that basic physics dictates that the cloud shouldn't be there. This inconsistency doesn't actually stop the cloud from being there...

29 December 2009
06:32 GMT

The Most Massive Star Ever Known Explodes

Astronomers term massive stars all of the celestial bodies that have a mass several times that of our Sun. These massive spheres of fire are capable of many things when they finally reach the end of their burning cycle, such as transforming into neutron stars, or even black holes. But, almost inevitably, when they ru...

3 December 2009
02:50 GMT

Progenitors of Type Ia Supernovae Possibly Discovered

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

Shedding Light on Black Hole Mysteries

Black holes have captured the imagination of scientists, movie producers and common folk over the years, because of their amazing traits and structures, and also due to the fact that they are unique in their own regard. There is nothing else in the Universe that resembles a black hole, or that can absorb and trap li...

10 November 2009
02:34 GMT

Astronomers Find New Type of Supernova

Supernovae are the huge explosions that accompany the end of a massive star's burning cycle. When the detonations occur, the outer layers over the former core are violently thrown away, and the core itself may collapse into a black hole, or into a neutron star, or simply a small, helium-based star, known as a wh...

6 November 2009
16:01 GMT

Stellar-Nursery Cores Are Potent Gamma-Ray Sources

For all its massive size, our galaxy, the Milky Way, is a bit slow when it comes to forming new stars. This is not the case with other large galaxies, which produce young, blue suns at very high rates. These areas of intense star production, known as stellar nurseries, have long been associated with radiation, and a ...

2 October 2009
20:31 GMT

First Simulation of a Star's Final Hours Created

Three applied mathematicians at the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), and two astrophysicists have recently created the first computer simulations of the final hours of white dwarf stars, right before they explode into Type Ia supernovae. The full-star-simulati...

23 September 2009
05:54 GMT

The Effects of Cosmic Rays

Cosmic radiations permeate everything around us at all times of the day. Some of them are generated near us, on a radius of a few thousand light-years, while some only reach our planet after a ten- to 11-billion-year journey. They are unnoticeable to humans, but some researchers believe they may have played a crucial...

28 August 2009
03:33 GMT

New Laser Method Can Find Supernova Isotope

Scientists who are currently investigating if a supernova exploded inside our solar system at one point in its existence need only to find traces of a certain isotope of hafnium in order to prove their claims are genuine. These isotopes only occur after massive supernova explosions, although hafnium is fairly easy to...

13 August 2009
10:51 GMT

Type 1A Supernova Light Variability Measured

The stellar explosions that form type 1a supernovas are among the most important events that can happen in space, scientifically speaking. Their steadfast level of luminosity, which is perceived as never-changing, has thus far helped astronomers create maps of distances between the various objects in our surroundings...

13 August 2009
09:01 GMT

Comets Carry Liquid Water When They Form

According to a new scientific study by experts at the Cardiff University, it may be that comets contain vast oceans of liquid water in their cores in the first million years of their existence. Additionally, the watery environment and the vast amounts of organic material already discovered in such a formation that cr...

1 August 2009
05:01 GMT

Supernova Explosion Simulated at the ANL

Experts at the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) have recently taken another step in helping us understand the complex nature of our Universe, when they created the first high-complexity simulation of a supernova, the explosion that occurs when a massive star dies and collapses. T...

1 August 2009
01:50 GMT

Betlegeuse Is Losing Mass at Massive Speeds

Betelgeuse is one of the most massive stars observed from the Earth, but scientists have lately been astounded by the fact that it seems to be losing some of its mass and brightness to an unexplained phenomenon. Scientists wielding the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT), in Chile, have re...

29 July 2009
15:01 GMT

Teen Discovers New, Small Supernova

While scouting the skies with her amateur telescope, 14-year-old New Yorker Caroline Moore discovered a new, junior-sized supernova, and thus became the youngest person in history ever to do so. The new celestial object, dubbed SN 2008ha, is also very peculiar, and may very well represent a new class of stellar explo...

11 June 2009
04:40 GMT

Astronomers Discover New Type of Supernovae

In a find that could potentially upset the current classification model employed in the astronomical community to identify a supernova explosion, researchers have discovered what appears to be a new class of supernova altogether, one that is dimmer and smaller than previously though possible. Astronomers working with...

5 June 2009
15:31 GMT

M82 Reveals Radio Supernova Explosion Signature

While peering inside a neighboring galaxy group, located some 12 million light-years away, astronomers discovered the signature of an elusive supernova explosion, which took place in the M82 galaxy. The formation is among the closest to Earth discovered over the past five years, but experts say that the reason the su...

28 May 2009
02:34 GMT

Two New Unique Star Systems

Astronomers from the Ohio State University reveal that they have discovered two new star systems which present particularities that associate them to a rare type of supernova. While studying a unique star system 13 million years away from Earth, hidden inside Holmberg IX, a small galaxy orbiting the M81 galaxy, resea...

1 April 2008
02:48 GMT

Astronomers View Replay of Ancient Supernova

With the help of light echoes, astronomers have been recently able to measure the brightness of a supernova explosion which took place about 400 years ago. The so-called SNR 0509-67.5 supernova remnant is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a galaxy in the near vicinity of our own Milky Way. While the original lig...

20 March 2008
12:25 GMT

Astrophysicists Focus on Stellar Evolution

We know much about stars, but even more to learn about them, otherwise we wouldn't try to replicate them here on Earth, would we? Stellar life, evolution and death are now becoming the points of interest for the European research program, which plans to study about 25 nuclear reactions that take place inside sta...

13 March 2008
06:00 GMT

VLT Reveals the Mystery of Spinning Material Disks Around Forming Stars

Lately, astronomers using the Very Large Telescope Interferometer have been able to probe parts of the material disk around a growing star, in order to determine how massive stars collect gas before becoming main sequence stars. The targeted object was a star in the Monoceros constellation, dubbed MWC 147. This parti...

30 January 2008
05:39 GMT

Supernovae Sweep Dust Away

It is generally believed that supernovae usually spread dust into interstellar space as they explode. However, astrophysicists have recently found that this is not always the case, and some might actually collect dust after a supernova phase. These are usually small stars that explode periodically, while gathering cl...

28 January 2008
09:21 GMT

Beautiful Supernovae Cradle Rocky Planets Formation

Now, we mostly know what nuclear reactions take place in the cores of the stars to create heavy elements that are spread into space following the supernovae explosions, but what types of supernovae are necessary for this process has been, so far, mostly unknown, considering the fact that stars like our own are relati...

21 December 2007
03:12 GMT

Biblical Sign Has Astrophysical Explanation

The Holy Bible describes how just before Jesus was born a star appeared to the East, guiding the Magi towards his birth place. That's fine from a religious point of view. However, astronomers are more curios when it comes to unexplained cosmic events such as the sudden appearance of a star on the sky. So, over t...

13 December 2007
05:16 GMT

Chandra Observes the Fastest Star Ever

The object in question is a neutron star, known as RX J0822-4300, in close proximity to the center of the Milky Way, traveling at about 4.8 million kilometers per hour, and is thought to have been accelerated by the gravitational interaction with the supermassive black hole, present in the core of the galaxy, that mi...

29 November 2007
02:59 GMT

Strange Small Stars

It is a well-known fact that white dwarfs are one of the possible final stages of a star's life. But recently astronomers discovered a new type of white dwarfs which seem to have pure carbon atmospheres that cannot be explained through the current models.Stars are formed through a process that involves the colla...

22 November 2007
03:25 GMT

Crazy Cosmic Discovery Is Worth $500,000

In the 1930, a cosmological theory was proposed and everyone thought it was too crazy to be true. It took almost eight decades for a group of scientists to finally prove that the theory is true, thus making one of the greatest space discoveries.$500,000 and the Gruber Cosmology Prize represent the reward for the dis...

17 July 2007
10:28 GMT


More: << previous 50

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