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    How to make ‘your own supernova’

    July 9, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Image credit: Shutterstock

    How to make a supernova – Summer Science Exhibition 2017

    Researchers are using the largest, most intense lasers on the planet, to for the first time, show the general public how to recreate the effects of supernovae, in a laboratory. One of the most extreme astrophysical events, Supernova explosions are the violent deaths of certain stars that scatter elements heavier than hydrogen and helium into surrounding space. Our own solar system is thought to have formed when a nearby supernova exploded distributing these elements into a cloud of hydrogen that then condensed to form our sun and the planets. In fact, the very atoms that make up our bodies were formed in the remnants of such an explosion.
     
    Working in collaboration with Imperial College, London, and AWE Aldermaston the tea...
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    Explosive Material: The Making of a Supernova

    April 10, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Instability before the supernova

    Pre-supernova stars may show signs of instability for months before the big explosion. Credit: Weizmann Institute of Science

    Pre-supernova stars may show signs of instability for months before the big explosion, spewing material into space and creating a dense gas shell around themselves, report scientists in a new report. In the most common type of supernova, the iron core of a massive star suddenly collapses in on itself and the outer layers are thrown out into space in a spectacular explosion. New research led by Weizmann Institute of Science researchers shows that the stars that become core-collapse supernovae might already exhibit instability for several months before the big event, spewing material into space and creating a dense gas shell around themselves...

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    Calculations Show Close Ia Supernova should be Neutrino detectable offering possibility of identifying Explosion type

    March 5, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Density contour plots including deflagration (white) and detonation (green) surfaces. Credit: arXiv:1609.07403 [astro-ph.HE] Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-03-ia-supernova-neutrino-possibility-explosion.html#jCp

    Density contour plots including deflagration (white) and detonation (green) surfaces. Credit: arXiv:1609.07403 [astro-ph.HE]

    A team of researchers at North Carolina State University has found that current and future neutrino detectors placed around the world should be capable of detecting neutrinos emitted from a relatively close supernova. They also suggest that measuring such neutrinos would allow them to explain what goes on inside of a star during such an explosion—if the measurements match one of two models the team built to describe the inner workings of a supernova.

    Supernovae have been classified into different types depending on what causes them to occur—one type, a la supernova, occurs when a white dwarf pulls in enough material from a companion, eventually triggering carbon fus...

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    Examining Exploding Stars through the Atomic Nucleus

    February 20, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Imagine being able to view microscopic aspects of a classical nova, a massive stellar explosion on the surface of a white dwarf star (about as big as Earth), in a laboratory rather than from afar via a telescope.

    Imagine being able to view microscopic aspects of a classical nova, a massive stellar explosion on the surface of a white dwarf star (about as big as Earth), in a laboratory rather than from afar via a telescope.

    Cosmic detonations of this scale and larger created many of the atoms in our bodies, says MSU’s Christopher Wrede, who presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting. A safe way to study these events in laboratories on Earth is to investigate the exotic nuclei or “rare isotopes” that influence them. “Astronomers observe exploding stars and astrophysicists model them on supercomputers,” said Wrede, physics assistant professor, MSU...

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