- Attachments : supernova remnant
- The theory has existed for decades that these type explosions come from carbon-oxygen White Dwarf stars. But the companion star can be anything from a red giant, to a main-sequence star like our Sun, or to another White Dwarf star.
- The single White Dwarf is the dead star left after the explosion. It has burned all of its nuclear fuel and is now a dense hot rock. It is so hot that heat and light will continue to glow for billions of years. But, it no longer shines from thermonuclear fusion. It will simply take a long time for it to slowly cool down.
(1) Supernova 2011fe:
- Last August 24, 2011 at 9:00 P.M. a supernova became visible in the Pinwheel Galaxy. It is 21,000,000 lightyears away. So that is how long ago the explosion happened. The light just reached us at 9:00 P.M. Actually, the astronomers estimated the explosion occurred 11 hours earlier when we were not looking. It is the youngest supernova ever discovered.
- The evidence from this explosion confirms that it was a White Dwarf star that was fed by a companion star. The White Dwarf was stealing gas and dust from the companion until it reached 1.4 Solar Mass, that much gravity collapses the atoms into the core, the rebound when the mass hit’s the center creates a thermonuclear explosion so bright it out shines the entire galaxy that is its home.
- The star went from being 1,000,000 times too dim to see with the naked eye, to 10,000 times to dim, to 6 times too dim. But, it could be seen with a small backyard telescope.
(2) Supernova SNR0509-67.5 :
- The supernova in the picture occurred 400 years ago in the Large Magellanic Cloud Galaxy, 160,000 lightyears away. Today the debris is 23 lightyears in diameter and expanding at 11,000,000 miles per hour. The debris was searched for evidence of the companion star but none could be found. Suggesting that the companion was also a White Dwarf and both stars were destroyed.
(3) Supernova G3501-0.3 :
- This supernova explosion was detected in X-ray images. It occurred 600 to 1,200 years ago about 14,700 light years away towards the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. (The radius of the Milky Way is about 60,000 lightyears.)
- In this case the supernova explosion provided a powerful kick to a companion star sending it packing at 3,000,000 miles per hour. The debris remnants are asymmetrical shape because the debris field of the supernova expanded in to a cloud of cold molecular gas.
(4) GRB 101225A Gamma Ray Burst:
- Last Christmas, December 25, 2010, astronomers detected Gamma Ray Burst in the Constellation Andromeda that lasted for 1,088 seconds. Astronomers have 2 theories of how such a large explosion could occur. The calculations made state that ½ the mass of the Dwarf Star Ceres would have to be shredded to trigger the amount of Gamma Ray radiation detected. The unusual characteristics of the afterglow led astronomers to generate novel hypotheses to explain the observations. They were unable to ascertain the burst’s distance and the two alternative hypotheses of the event are radically different.
-------------(1) An asteroid got too close to a Neutron Star and burst into a blaze of Gamma Rays as gravity ripped it apart. The explosion was only 10,000 lightyears away. The Neutron Star’s gravity is so intense the tidal forces ripped it apart. Hard X-ray emissions ( the burst ) results from the first matter falling onto the Neutron Star. X-ray emission variations occurred as clumps of material struck the star and an accretion disk formed around it. The disk cooled down and emits ultraviolet radiation and optical wavelengths.
------------- (2) Two stars merged and created a dim supernova explosion. A Neutron Star slowly spiraled into a massive helium star. This was a binary system where the Neutron Star orbited a normal helium star that had entered the Red Giant phase engulfing the Neutron Star. The Red Giant’s atmosphere was ejected as the Neutron Star spiraled in. The two stars became wrapped in a common envelope of gas. The Neutron Star merged with the Giant’s core in 5 orbits taking only 18 months. The merger created a Blackhole and a Magnetar with oppositely directed jets of particles moving at nearly the speed of light, followed by a weak supernova explosion. The particle jets produced gamma rays. The event occurred with a of redshift 0.33 in a faint galaxy that was 5.5 billion lightyears away
- The reason astronomers are so interested in these type supernovae is that because they theoretically collapse at the consistent 1.4 Solar Mass the resulting illumination should be a uniform brightness, a “Standard Candle” that can by used to calculate distances.
- The brightness also depends of the proportion metals in the star. “ Metal” to astronomers are any element with an atomic number >3. Anything heavier than hydrogen, helium, and lithium that were created in the Big Bang. All heavier elements were created in these supernovae explosions. Once distances are well defined astronomers can gather the evidence to explain Dark Energy and the expansion of the Universe.
- Things in the Universe go Boom! Then, astronomers try to figure out what happened. An announcement will be made shortly , stay tuned.
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707-536-3272, Tuesday, February 21, 2012
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