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Herschel Spectroscopy of Future Supernova

Posted by Soulskill on from the that's-a-big-star dept.

davecl writes "ESA's Herschel Space Telescope has released its first spectroscopic results. These include observations of VYCMa, a star 50 times as massive as the sun and soon to become a supernova, as well as a nearby galaxy, more distant colliding starburst galaxies and a comet in our own solar system. The spectra show more lines than have ever been seen in these objects in the far-infrared and will allow astronomers to work out the detailed chemistry and physics behind star and planet formation as well as the last stages of stellar evolution before VYCMa's eventual collapse into a supernova. More coverage is available at the Herschel Mission Blog, which I run."

3 of 21 comments (clear)

  1. VYCMa by YourExperiment · · Score: 5, Funny

    Planet, there's a place you can go,
    I said, planet, when your velocity's low,
    You can orbit, and I'm sure you will see,
    A supernova for you and me.

    It's fun to orbit VYCMa,
    It's fun to orbit VYCMa,
    They have everything that you need to enjoy,
    Being utterly destroyed.

  2. SPIRE by digitrev · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Heh. Nice to see results from this. I just did some work related to SPIRE in Summer 08. Namely, some nonlinearities with regards to bolometers (the type of detector used on SPIRE). Just some coop work, but it's kind of nice to see a project you worked on get some nice results. Unfortunately, you can't see the effects of my work because they only show up as second and third harmonics, and the data here doesn't show enough to see it.

    --
    Cynical Idealist
  3. Another way of looking at it by A+nonymous+Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    An experiment is a prediction of something whose result is not yet proven. Just as in, say, chemistry, you can make predictions and test them with an experiment, so for astronomy. You make a prediction about what will be observed under certain conditions. The experiment requires better telescopes to test, so 20 years later, when Hubble comes along, you test the predicted outcome, and possibly disprove the prediction. Or maybe you only need to make a new observation which no one has made yet to test your idea.

    It may not be a classic mix-and-watch experiment, but it seems like one to me.

    --
    Infuriate left and right