#supernovae

[mindblowingscience]

Astronomers have glimpsed the core of a dying star—confirming theories of how atoms are made

Astronomers have glimpsed the inner structure of a dying star in a rare kind of cosmic explosion called an "extremely stripped supernova."

Astronomers have glimpsed the inner structure of a dying star in a rare kind of cosmic explosion called an "extremely stripped supernova." In a paper published today in Nature, Steve Schulze of Northwestern University in the United States and colleagues describe the supernova 2021yfj and a thick shell of gas surrounding it.

Continue Reading.

[livingforstars]

Star Wars in NGC 664 - April 18th, 1998.

"Long ago in a galaxy far, far away, locked in their final desperate struggle against the force of gravity...two stars exploded! Stellar explosions - supernovae - are among the most powerful events in the Universe, estimated to release an equivalent energy of up to 1 million trillion trillion (1 followed by 30 zeros) megatons of TNT. After the explosion, an expanding supernova envelope is observed to brighten over a period of days to a maximum light output, which rivals that of an entire galaxy before fading from view over the following months. Triggered by the collapsing core of a massive star or the nuclear demise of a white dwarf, supernovae occur in average spiral galaxies only about once every 25-100 years. But an observation of NGC 664, a spiral galaxy about 300 million light-years distant, captured a rare and colourful performance - two supernovae from the same galaxy. In this monitoring exposure, the two supernovae, one reddish yellow and one blue, form a close pair just below the image center (to the right of the galaxy nucleus). The colour difference is due to temperature - blue is hotter."

[pangeen]

" The heart of the Milky Way, Messier 8 and SNR G007.5-01.7 "

// © Bray Falls

[blasteffect]

10 billion light-years away...

Giant Star Seen 150 Days Before it Exploded as a Supernova !

In April of 2023, a massive star exploded in NGC 4388, a spiral galaxy about 57 million light-years away. The Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) spotted it, and the supernova is called SN 2023 fyg. SN 2023fyq is a rare type of supernova called a Type Ibn.

They show a lack of hydrogen lines and narrow He I emission lines in their spectra. Astronomers think that these characteristics come from the SN interacting with hydrogen-poor, helium-rich circumstellar material (CSM.)

Astronomers only know of a few of these types of SN, so their progenitors are poorly understood. Prior to its explosion, the ZTF also spotted the precursor activity, providing a window into these mysterious progenitors.

[colorpicked-pride-flags-jwst]

Demisensual flag colorpicked from distant galaxy MRG-M0138, where a supernova can be seen twice (circled) due to gravitational lensing! In 2035, a 3rd image of the supernova will appear

[cosmicfunnies]

Let’s finish July with a bang! Today’s comic: Supernova types!

https://www.space.com/31608-supernovas-star-explosions-infographic.html

How is a supernova different from a hypernova? Learn about the different types of exploding stars that astronomers have identified.

[adastra-sf]

Supernova 1987A's Rings of Power

Here's a Hubble photo - that's the supernova remnant embedded in the center of the image.

A Hubble close-up.

Now the Webb Space Telescope crew has released a new photo, bringing out incredible detail using the instrument's infrared camera:

The center of the remnant is packed with clumpy gas and dust ejected by the supernova explosion, first seen lighting up the Large Magellanic Cloud in February, 1987. The dust is so dense that even the near-infrared light Webb can detect can't penetrate, shaping the dark spot at the center of what looks like a keyhole.

A bright, equatorial ring surrounds all this, forming a band around the waist from material ejected tens of thousands of years before the supernova explosion. This ring contains bright hot spots that appeared as the supernova's shock wave hit the ring. Two faint arms of hourglass-shaped outer rings surround it.

Webb reveals spots throughout the ring, where supernova shocks crash into exterior material:

We'll close with NASA's animated model of Supernova 1987A's Ring of Power.

Imagine what it would be like to live on an alien world in the Large Magellanic Cloud when this beautiful monster popped off just down the street, briefly brighter than all the other stars in this companion galaxy - even brighter than our huge Milky Way Galaxy, the huge city right next door. Our potential alien neighbor can probably still see the glowing remnant in the night sky with naked eyes, decades after the star's brilliant demise. But when it exploded, it would have been visible there in broad daylight.