Forgot your password?
Huge Supernova Baffles Scientists
Scientists from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and San Diego State University have observed an explosion of a star 50 times larger than the sun. In what they call a "first observation of its kind" the scientists were able to notice that most of the star’s mass collapsed in on itself, resulting in a creation of a large black hole. While exploding stars, or "supernovae," have been previously detected using advanced research satellites, this recent explosion is the largest exploding star observed so far. The phenomenon strengthens a theory that according to which stars ranging from tens to hundreds of times the mass of our sun all end their lifetime as black holes.
The star, which lay about 200 million light years away from earth and was million times brighter than the Sun, has exploded as a supernova at a much earlier date than the one predicted by astronomers. The phenomenon was captured by Dr. Avishay Gal-Yam of the Weizmann Institute’s Faculty of Physics in Israel and Professor Douglas Leonard of San Diego State University. According to the scientists, any star’s “death” is predetermined by factors such as its size and “power plant,” which keeps it shining during its lifetime. “Stars, among them our sun, are fueled by hydrogen nuclei fusing together into helium in the intense heat and pressure of their inner cores. A helium nucleus is a bit lighter than the sum of the masses of the four hydrogen nuclei that went into making it and, from Einstein’s theory of relativity (E=MC^2), we know that the missing mass is released as energy” – explain Gal-Yam and Leonard.
http://thefutureofthings.com/news/6735/huge-supernova-baffles-scientists.html
