Word: supernovae
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
There she stands, Miss Black America. With her impeccable face, sleek figure and supernova smile, she looks like a Cosby kid made in heaven. She stirs sentiments not of lust but of protectiveness and awe; everybody around wants to adopt her, escort her or be her. And now this perfect creature picks up a microphone. Oh. You mean she sings...
...would Sanduleak, a blue supergiant, a star presumably in mid-life, collapse so violently? According to theory, only aging red supergiants, whose outer gaseous layers had turned from blue to red as they expanded and cooled, spawned this type of supernova. One hypothesis: SK-69 202, like other stars in the LMC, contained relatively little metal, which theorists now think may keep the outer shell of even older stars from expanding fully, thus making it glow blue rather than red as it plunged toward its thermonuclear crisis. Said University of Chicago Astrophysicist David Schramm: "It's clear that while...
...Scientists are puzzled by the unusual pattern of light 1987A is emitting. Said Garrison: "This is not like any supernova we've yet seen." Generally, light from supernovas is expected to peak quickly and then decline. But 1987A's brightness rose, then leveled off, then increased again, peaking around May 22, when it was easily visible to the naked eye. Since then it has been gradually dimming. One possible explanation was proposed by Astronomer Stan Woosley of the University of California at Santa Cruz. He suggests that the decay of radioactive elements within 1987A's cloud of debris...
Perhaps the most confusing phenomenon of all is the discovery of a glowing companion to the supernova that is 100 times as bright as Sanduleak had been. Scientists are frankly stumped by its appearance. Two teams of astronomers, from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and London's Imperial College, both using a technique known as optical speckle interferometry (quickly dubbed "that speckled thing"), fed data from telescopic observations into computers. What emerged was a composite picture that confounded everyone. Said Woosley: "It's easier to say what it isn't than what it is. It wasn't there before...
...multiple layers cool and become transparent, Supernova 1987A continues to tantalize scientists. What will be revealed? "Eventually," said Woosley, "we should see the monster that lives at the center." Predicted McCray: "The best is yet to come...