Tuesday, August 5, 2014

STARDUST FORMS AROUND A SUPERNOVA


New observations reveal how stardust forms around a supernova
One of the most massive cosmic explosive events in the universe is a supernova. A supernova is the violent death of a luminous supergiant star. These blindingly bright star bursts occur at the end of a star’s lifetime, when its nuclear fuel is exhausted and it is no longer supported by the release of nuclear energy.

A group of astronomers has been able to follow stardust being made in real time — during the aftermath of a supernova explosion. For the first time they show that these cosmic dust factories make their grains in a two-stage process, starting soon after the explosion, but continuing for years afterwards. The team used ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) in northern Chile to analyse the light from the supernova SN2010jl as it slowly faded. The new results are published online in the journal Nature.


Source and further reading: http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1421/
Video source:
초신성 폭발 Supernova explosion (artist's impression)
Animation: Supernova explosion (artist’s impression)
CORINA marinescu

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