from the Illudium-PU36-explosive-space-modulator-is-a-firecracker dept.
First Optical Detection of a Shock Breakout From a Type II-P Supernova:
For the first time, a "shock breakout" in an exploding supergiant star has been discovered at visible wavelengths.
... Supernovae like these — known as Type II — begin when the internal furnace of a star runs out of nuclear fuel, causing its core to collapse as gravity takes over. Stars 10 to 20 times the mass of our sun often expand to supergiants before ending their lives as supernovae. ...When these massive stars run out of fuel in their center, their core collapses down to a neutron star and a supersonic shock wave is sent out. When the shock wave reaches the surface of the star, a bright flash of light, called a "shock breakout," is predicted.
In 2011, two of these massive red supergiants exploded while in Kepler's view. The first, KSN 2011a, is nearly 300 times the size of our sun and a mere 700 million light years from Earth. The second, KSN 2011d, is roughly 500 times the size of our sun and some 1.2 billion light years away.
"The flash from a breakout should last about an hour, so you have to be very lucky or continuously stare at millions of stars just to catch one flash," said [lead astronomer] [Peter] Garnavich.
Understanding the physics of these explosions allows scientists to better understand how the seeds of chemical complexity and life itself have been scattered in space and time in the Milky Way galaxy.
Here is a video animation that illustrates a shock breakout. The research paper has been accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal and can be found at: http://arxiv.org/abs/1603.05657.
KSN 2011d is so large that it would take light nearly 20 minutes to travel from its center to its outer edge — the orbits of Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars would all very easily fit within it.
(Score: 1, Redundant) by bob_super on Tuesday March 22 2016, @06:15PM
> the orbits of Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars would all very easily fit within it.
The redundant office for redundant statements' redundant studies has a redundant opinion on the redundant need for redundant statements redundantly designed to fill redundant text space.
Maybe if Mars had been named Stavromula Beta Turbo Minor Prime, they wouldn't feel they have to list every planet closer than Mars.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday March 22 2016, @08:14PM
Maybe if Mars had been named Stavromula Beta Turbo Minor Prime, they wouldn't feel they have to list every planet closer than Mars.
I think they listed all the planets because all their orbits would fit inside, even if you added them all up.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Wednesday March 23 2016, @04:29PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday March 22 2016, @07:11PM
"There's a supernova. "
"There's another supernova. "
"No, actually i think that was the same supernova."
(If my daughter read Soylent, she'd be laughing right now....)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday March 22 2016, @07:48PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday March 22 2016, @08:25PM
Made?
I couldn't stop her!
Come on, it's a decent, relatively poorly acted (or should i say scripted) movie! With cows! I'd definitely watch it again and again before i'd watch that other poorly acted (or should i say scripted) movie 'Star Wars: Please wake me' again!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 22 2016, @07:16PM
Isn't it amazing how close some of our science fiction special effect animators got the idea of supernova explosions? Surely that will fuel conspiracy theories...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 22 2016, @07:31PM
From Youtube linked in TFS:
The cartoon video begins with a view of a red supergiant star that is 500 hundred times bigger and 20,000 brighter than our sun.... This animation is based on photometric observations made by NASA’s Kepler space telescope. By closely monitoring the star KSN 2011d, located 1.2 billion light-years away, Kepler caught the onset of the early flash and subsequent explosion.
When I originally saw the headline this morning, I thought "Woah! Somebody lucked out and caught one on film?!" No such luck here, but it is nice that the luminosity of the events was captured.
Come to think of it, wouldn't any supernova that's close enough to capture images from like in the animation be a planet-wide "oh shi--!"? I have absolutely no intuition about how sensitive modern instruments are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 22 2016, @07:59PM
You would not want to be around to see that. If you were, you would not be for very long.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bob_super on Tuesday March 22 2016, @08:07PM
Of all the ways to get into $afterlife, "got vaporized by a supernova" does carry some of the best bragging rights, if the rest of Earth is still alive.
(Score: 1) by Mykl on Tuesday March 22 2016, @10:51PM
FTFY.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 22 2016, @11:31PM
That shouldn't be too fast considering no-one can here you scream in space...
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Wednesday March 23 2016, @12:56AM
In the gas atmosphere of a star, however, pressure waves can form and these are called "sound". The denser the gas, the faster the speed of sound.