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NewsPapers
- Scientists Observe Supernova in Action (New York Times)
"Far away on the day of Jan. 9, Earth time, a satellite telescope by the name of Swift, which happened to be gazing at the star’s galaxy, a smudge of stars 88 million light-years away in the constellation Lynx, recorded an unexpected burst of invisible X-rays 100 billion times as bright as the Sun." 05-08
- A Star Older than the Universe (YouTube)
Explores the possibility that a particular star is 200 billion years older than the universe.
- Betelgeuse Supernova (Christian Science Monitor)
"Although the star is only some 650 light-years from Earth, it’s still far enough that the radiation from its explosion won’t affect us. But it will dazzle anyone who is around to view it. Astronomers think it could be as bright as a full moon – perhaps visible in our sky even during the day – and its glow could linger in the sky for months or even a year." 02-20
- Crab Nebula (SEDS.org)
"The Crab Nebula is the most famous and conspicuous known supernova remnant, the expanding cloud of gas created in the explosion of a star as supernova which was observed in the year 1054 AD." Also spelled "nebulas." 01-06
- New Data Suggest Supernova May Have Created Nearest Black Hole (Weather.com)
"New data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory suggest a highly distorted supernova remnant may contain the most recent black hole formed in the Milky Way galaxy. The remnant appears to be the product of a rare explosion in which matter is ejected at high speeds along the poles of a rotating star." 02-13
- Residue Seen from Supernova of 1604 (MSNBC News)
"Four hundred years ago this week, a previously unseen star suddenly appeared in the night sky. Discovered on Oct. 9, 1604, it was brighter than all other stars."
"No supernova in our galaxy has been discovered since the 1604 event."
- Supernovae Back Einstein's Constant (Scientific American)
"Now new observations from an international team of astronomers seem to show that dark energy is like the cosmological constant, unvarying throughout space and time. By measuring the distances to 71 far-off supernovae, the scientists were able to ascertain with a high degree of confidence that the effect dark energy exerts on supernovae light does not vary with distance. The researchers also plugged this data into a so-called equation of state, which measures the relationship between pressure and density, and found that dark energy must be less than -0.85--awfully close to Einstein's cosmological constant at -1. 'Our observation is at odds with a number of theoretical ideas about the nature of dark energy that predict that it should change as the universe expands and, as far as we can see, it doesn't,' says team member Ray Carlberg of the University of Toronto." 11-05
- Understanding a Supernova (Time.com)
"Most stars end their lives in a whimper — our own sun will almost certainly be one of them — but the most massive stars go out with an impressive bang. When that happens, creating what's known as a Type II supernova, the associated blast of energy is so brilliant that it can briefly outshine an entire galaxy, give birth to ultra-dense neutron stars or black holes, and forge atoms so heavy that even the Big Bang wasn't powerful enough to create them. If supernovas didn't exist, neither would gold, silver, platinum or uranium. The last time a supernova went off close enough to earth to be visible without a telescope, back in 1987, it made the cover of TIME." 09-10
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