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Stellar Spectacular: Brightest supernova
05-12-2007 · Science News OnlineAstronomers have discovered the brightest stellar explosion ever observed, and it could be the first example of a rare type of supernova involving a freakishly massive star.
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- NASA's Chandra sees brightest supernova ever
05-07-2007 · EurekAlert!
The brightest stellar explosion ever recorded may be a long-sought new type of supernova, according to observations by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and ground-based optical telescopes. This discovery indicates that violent explosions of extremely massive stars were relatively common in the early universe, and that a similar explosion may be ready to go off in our own Galaxy.
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- New type of massive stellar death
12-20-2006 · EurekAlert!
So far we have thought that the signature of the death of a massive star was an energetic explosion called a "supernova." New observations show that this is not always the case. On the contrary, a team led by Danish researchers has now discovered that some massive stars die by collapsing into a black hole returning very little material into the interstellar medium. The new discovery is published in Nature.
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- Two cosmic bursts upset tidy association between long gamma-ray bursts and supernovae
12-20-2006 · EurekAlert!
Only in the past decade have astronomers been able to make sense of the bright flashes of cosmic light known as gamma-ray bursts, which are the brightest explosions in the universe. But two newly observed bursts reported in this week's Nature suggest that not all can be neatly divided between long bursts associated with supernovae and short bursts due to stellar mergers.
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- Solving a 400-year-old supernova riddle
01-27-2007 · Science News Online
Astronomers have determined that Kepler's supernova, the last stellar explosion witnessed in our galaxy, belongs to the class known as type 1a.
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- Rethinking last century's closest, brightest supernova
01-09-2007 · EurekAlert!
February 2007 marks the 20th anniversary of the nearest and brightest supernova humans have seen in 400 years. Called SN1987A, it burned for weeks in the Large Magellanic Cloud, and provided astronomers with new information that forced them to rethink theories of how massive stars explode. Now UC Berkeley astronomer Nathan Smith says that theory needs rethinking again. Exploding stars like SN1987A may have been luminous blue variables, not blue supergiants.
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- Stellar forensics with striking new image from Chandra
10-23-2007 · EurekAlert!
A spectacular new image shows how complex a star's afterlife can be. By studying the details of this image made from a long observation by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers can better understand how some stars die and disperse elements like oxygen into the next generation of stars and planets.
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- NASA'S Swift sees double supernova in galaxy
06-26-2007 · EurekAlert!
In just the past six weeks, two supernovae have flared up in an obscure galaxy in the constellation Hercules. Never before have astronomers observed two of these powerful stellar explosions occurring in the same galaxy so close together in time.
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- The purple rose of Virgo
03-27-2007 · EurekAlert!
Until now NGC 5584 was just one galaxy among many others, located to the West of the Virgo Cluster. Known only as a number in galaxy surveys, its sheer beauty is now revealed in all its glory in a new VLT image. Since March 1, this purple cosmic rose also holds the brightest stellar explosion of the year, known as SN 2007af.
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- Unusual supernovae may reveal intermediate-mass black holes in globular clusters
01-29-2008 · EurekAlert!
A strange and violent fate awaits a white dwarf star that wanders too close to a moderately massive black hole. According to a new study, the black hole's gravitational pull on the white dwarf would cause tidal forces sufficient to disrupt the stellar remnant and reignite nuclear burning in it, giving rise to a supernova explosion with an unusual appearance.
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- Largest, brightest supernova ever seen may be long-sought pair-instability supernova
05-07-2007 · EurekAlert!
UC Berkeley astronomers Nathan Smith and David Pooley report the most luminous supernova ever detected, the explosion of a super-massive star in a galaxy 250 million light years away. The scientists estimate the star was 150 times larger than our sun, and that it exploded via an entirely new mechanism never before observed. Unlike other massive supernovas, this so-called pair instability supernova left behind no black hole.
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