SUPERNOVAS
Few words in the English language can evoke the WOW! Factor quite like Supernova. There have been bands, songs, and comic book superheroes named after this type of exploding star.
Supernovae occur at the end of a star's life when its furnace runs out of fuel. Because gravity then overcomes the star's ability to remain puffed up, there is a violent collapse, followed by an explosion that produces radioactive elements such as nickel and cobalt. Most of the light we see from a supernova is emitted as those radioactive elements decay, so the brightness falls sharply over a period of weeks.
Incidentally, all the iron in your blood came from the decay of radioactive nickel manufactured in a stellar explosion. So most of the atoms in your body were once in the interiors of stars.
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In January 2014, a Type 1a Supernova in Messier 82, otherwise known as the Cigar Galaxy which is about 12 million light years from the constellation Ursa Major (the Great Bear) was discovered by students at the University College London. Some scientists call this a potential Holy Grail as it may give valuable insight into Dark Energy (more on this in a future post). It is positioned between the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper. This rare cosmic event would be visible through a telescope any amateur stargazer could buy at a store.
We see this light 11.4 million years after the explosion happened, because of the time light takes to reach our galaxy. So it was a really special time in M82 11.4 million years ago.
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Supernovae are extremely luminous and cause a burst of radiation that often briefly outshines an entire galaxy, before fading from view over several weeks or months. During this interval a supernova can radiate as much energy as the Sun is expected to emit over its entire life span. Reference:
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A star can go supernova in one of two ways:
Type I supernova: star accumulates matter from a nearby neighbor until a runaway nuclear reaction ignites.
Type II supernova: star runs out of nuclear fuel and collapses under its own gravity
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Did You Know: A supernova occurs in our Milky Way Galaxy about twice every hundred years. This may seem to be a rare occurence. But since there are about 30-40 million spiral galaxies in the universe, this translates to a supernova happening somewhere about once every two seconds.
Supernova Fun Facts:
1. Some supernovas become black holes.
2. When a star explodes, it shoots out billions of atoms into space, where they form a huge cloud of dust called a nebula.
3. Most of the carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, silicon, and iron that we have on Earth originally came from a supernova explosion.
4. In 1054 AD, astronomers in China and the Islamic Empire recorded a supernova (they noticed a star so bright you could see it in the daylight). That supernova is now the Crab Nebula.
5. If a supernova is one light year away, you will have one year to prepare for your eminent doom.
6. Even though one day our sun will die, it is not large enough to go all supernova on us. It will simply expand into a Red Giant and consume the Earth. So you can go to sleep in peace knowing you are safe from dying from our sun going supernova on you.
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Stephen Tremp is the author of the Breakthrough series. Together, Breakthrough, Opening, and Escalation follow the lives of the unlikely participants from innocence to a coming of age through sacrifice, betrayal, passion, lust, unconditional love, and hope. Escalation will appeal to fans of modern-day science fiction, paranormal, action, horror, and even romance.
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For those who know there is far more beyond our four dimensional continuum than our five senses can perceive.
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