February 28, 2004
Final hours of a supernova.
Sure, it's a big explosion, but what's cool is astrophysicists have a detailed picture of the final hours and seconds of the blast. In short, the supernova occurs when silicon fusion ends and the star is suddenly left with about 10^27 tons of unburnable iron. The star collapses at up to 15% of the speed of light and rebounds cataclysmically, all in less than one second. More neat stuff here and here. Whoever said class notes are dull?
-
Fantasic. Thank you.
-
[cosmic banana-shaped nebula]
-
["wooo...stars"]
-
Nice, Timmus! **adds flash thingy**
-
Everything I ever learned about the sun came from They Might Be Giants. This was a fantastic link, timmus.
-
Having just waded through a few chapters of a typically tedious textbook, I'd like to amplify: the energetic writing of that Vandy link really made it shine. Supernovas (novae?) are exciting! Whoever penned those notes didn't lose sight of that, and took care that the students didn't, either.
-
First hours of a supernova
-
Whoa!! Now that's a trip. *eyeballs Sun, gets out parasol*