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Hubble Snaps Pix Of Dying Supernova

Posted by Hemos on from the explosion-of-a-thousand-suns dept.

The Hubble has taken some great pictures of a supernova according to CNN. You can get a more indepth article, and more pictures from Space.com story on the same subject. Purty explosions!

3 of 109 comments (clear)

  1. Semi-OT : Bigger Pictures? by Viperion · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I'm dissapointed by the size of the pictures in either story. Does anyone know where I might be able to find bigger pictures? (I need a new background. :))

  2. Hubble wins again! by PhysicsGenius · · Score: 1, Interesting
    I love science. I love big science. But science is more than pretty pictures. It is a process of creating, testing and destroying hypotheses to push our knowledge to the edge of the envelope.

    The Hubble telescope does none of these things. Of course, neither does an electron microscope or a hammer--because they are merely tools. But when wielded by a trained, creative and insightful scientist they can help produce startling new theories that make our life better.

    But the Hubble telescope isn't in the hands of trained, creative and insightful scientists. It is in the hands of bureaucrats and politicians who dole out a minute here and a minute there on whatever pet projects they happen to favor. When Scientist A creates a theory based on an observation made with Hubble, these chairwarmers refuse to let Scientist B use the 'scope to attempt demolish that theory for fear it will make Hubble look bad.

    We obviously can't afford to make enough for everyone, so the only solution is to let no one have it. Decommission the Hubble

  3. Aspheric explosions by Beryllium+Sphere(tm) · · Score: 5, Interesting

    That passing line in the space.com article about lack of symmetry connects to some interesting physics.

    Scientists were embarrassed for a while by the fact that the most realistic computer models of supernovae would fizzle instead of exploding. A simulated shock wave would start from the core, but with the mass of a star falling in on it the shock wave always stalled.

    Then they switched from 1-dimensional simulations to 2-dimensional simulations when they got hold of enough computer power. Turns out there's an overturn instability. The shock wave can't make it out *on average* but does locally. Some small fluctuation gets bigger as the shock wave pounds at it and that direction gets more of the action.

    Which explained an old observation that a lot of supernova remnants were moving pretty fast. Among other things, the supernova is a rocket engine with peak power equal to the luminosity of a galaxy, and (forgive me) astronomical amounts of propellant.

    That was a qualitative insight from a quantitative increase in computer power.