29.11.

2013

"30 Supernovas Per Second in the Universe"

The Daily Galaxy --Great Discoveries Channel: Sci, Space, Tech

F O L L O W T H E DA IL Y G A L A X Y

October 21 , 201 3

"30 Supernovas Per Second in the Universe"

While there is, on av erage, only one supernov a per galax y per century , there is something on the order of 1 00 billion galax ies in the observ able Univ erse. Taking 1 0 billion y ears for the age of the Univ erse (it's actually 1 3.7 billion, but stars didn't form for the first few hundred million), Dr. Richard Mushotzky of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, deriv ed a figure of 1 billion supernov ae per y ear, or 30 supernov ae per second in the observ able Univ erse. Supernov av a 1 987 A, discov ered in 1 987 , is the closest ex ploding star to Earth to be detected since 1 604 and resides
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"30 Supernovas Per Second in the Universe"

in the nearby Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galax y adjacent to our own Milky Way Galax y . In addition to ejecting massiv e amounts of hy drogen, 1 987 A has spewed helium, ox y gen, nitrogen and rarer heav y elements like sulfur, silicon and iron. Supernov ae are responsible for a large fraction of biologically important elements, including ox y gen, carbon and iron found in plants and animals on Earth today . Since the supernov a is roughly 1 63,000 light-y ears away , the ex plosion occurred in roughly 1 61 ,000 B.C. (One light y ear is about 6 trillion miles). The Univ ersity of Colorado Cosmic Origins Spectograph team using NASA's refurbished Hubble Space Telescope observ ed the supernov a in optical, ultrav iolet and near-infrared light, charting the interplay between the stellar ex plosion and the famous "String of Pearls," a glowing ring 6 trillion miles in diameter encircling the supernov a remnant that has been energized by X-ray s. The gas ring likely was shed some 20,000 y ears before the supernov a ex ploded, and shock wav es rushing out from the remnant hav e been brightening some 30 to 40 pearl-like "hot spots" in the ring -- objects that likely will grow and merge together in the coming y ears to form a continuous, glowing circle. "The new observ ations allow us to accurately measure the v elocity and composition of the ejected 'star guts,' which tell us about the deposition of energy and heav y elements into the host galax y ," said CU-Boulder Research Associate Kev in France of the Center for Astrophy sics and Space Astronomy and a member of the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph science team since 2007 . "The new observ ations not only tell us what elements are being recy cled into the Large Magellanic Cloud, but how it changes its env ironment on human time scales." Hubble is the only observ atory in the world that can observ e the brightening of the String of Pearls in ultrav iolet light, said France. Most of the data for the study was gathered by the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph, or STIS, which was installed on Hubble in 1 997 and was one of the workhorse instruments before its power supply failed in 2004. A faulty circuit board on STIS was replaced by astronauts on the final Hubble repair mission in May 2009. The team compared STIS observ ations in January 201 0 with Hubble observ ations made ov er the past 1 5 y ears on 1 987 A's ev olution. STIS has prov ided the team with detailed images of the ex ploding star, as well as spectrographic data -- essentially wav elengths of light broken down into colors like a prism that produce unique fingerprints of gaseous matter. The results rev ealed temperatures, chemical composition, density and motion of 1 987 A and its surrounding env ironment, said France. "To see a supernov a go off in our backy ard and to watch its ev olution and interactions with the env ironment in human time scales is unprecedented," he said. "The massiv e stars that produce ex plosions like Supernov a 1 987 A are like rock stars -- they liv e fast, flashy liv es and die y oung." France said the energy input from supernov ae regulates the phy sical state and the long-term ev olution of galax ies like the Milky Way . Many astronomers believ e a supernov a ex plosion near our forming sun some 4 to 5 billion y ears ago is responsible for a significant fraction of radioactiv e elements in our solar sy stem today , he said. "In the big picture, we are seeing the effect a supernov a can hav e in the surrounding galax y , including how the energy deposited by these stellar ex plosions changes the dy namics and chemistry of the env ironment," said France. "We can use this new data to understand how supernov a processes regulate the ev olution of galax ies." The Daily Galax y v ia Univ ersity of Colorado at Boulder Related articles

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"30 Supernovas Per Second in the Universe"

Im a g e of t h e How t o fin d Da y : Br illia n t y ou r v er y Su per n ov a ow n 1 2 h ou r s su per n ov a A ft er it Ex ploded in Posted AM | Permalink t h e Pin at w h03:00 eel Ga la x y Like 93
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any one know what the source for the im age is? Posted by : Ry an | July 1 4 , 2 01 3 at 02 :04 PM It's Supernov a 1 9 87 A, there are sev eral im ages of it lighting up the balls of gas around it as the shockwav e trav els outwards. I m ade a gif of it before; can't find it any m ore. Posted by : Mouse McCoy | October 2 1 , 2 01 3 at 01 :4 5 PM discov ered on a surv ey by the team of univ ersity of toronto at oberv atorio las cam panas/chile Posted by : pedro antunes | October 2 6 , 2 01 3 at 06 :59 AM Why is there a person in the m iddle off the supernov a ring of pearls? Posted by : curious | Nov em ber 08, 2 01 3 at 1 2 :1 1 AM

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