Saturday, February 26, 2005
Supernova Caught on Film
European astromomers at the Calar Alto Observatory in Spain have caught a dazzling supernova on film. The exploding star resides near the edge of the spectacular "grand spiral galaxy" NGC 6118 some 80 million light years away. The supernova blew up on August 1, 2004. Acccording to the astronomers, this particular kind of supernova resulted from the demise of a massive star that has lost its entire hydrogen envelope.
The supernova was classified Type Ib or Ic, which means it was part of a binary star system. A binary system involves a regular star,like our sun, and a super dense star called white dwarf. The heavy dwarf sucks away hydrogen from the neighboring star, fattening itself until it suffers from a massive case of indigestion (reaches critical density) and blows off. Such stellars explosions fuse hydrogen into helium, oxygen, carbon, iron, and so on, forging all the elements you, I, even the beer in your fridge are all made of.
Click on the headline for a picture.
The supernova was classified Type Ib or Ic, which means it was part of a binary star system. A binary system involves a regular star,like our sun, and a super dense star called white dwarf. The heavy dwarf sucks away hydrogen from the neighboring star, fattening itself until it suffers from a massive case of indigestion (reaches critical density) and blows off. Such stellars explosions fuse hydrogen into helium, oxygen, carbon, iron, and so on, forging all the elements you, I, even the beer in your fridge are all made of.
Click on the headline for a picture.
