Cassiopeia A: The remnant of a once-massive star is 10,000 light-years distant (Image: NASA)
Facts About Supernovae
The oldest recorded supernova dates back almost 2000 years. ...
Many of the elements we're made of come from supernovae. ...
Supernovae are neutrino factories. ...
Supernovae are powerful particle accelerators. ...
Supernovae produce radioactivity. ...
A nearby supernova could cause a mass extinction. ...
Supernovae light can echo through time.
Approximately one supernova occurs every second. Supernovae happen more often than you might think: one occurs somewhere in the universe every second. ...
Most chemical elements are made in a supernova. ...
They're brighter than a galaxy. ...
Not all supernovae destroy stars. ...
Supernovae can create magnificent remnants.
STUNNING moment star explodes
NASA has created a stunning technicoloured 3D simulation of an exploding star supernova.
Why does a supernova happen?
It's a balance of gravity pushing in on the star and heat and pressure pushing outward from the star's core. When a massive star runs out of fuel, it cools off. This causes the pressure to drop. ... The collapse happens so quickly that it creates enormous shock waves that cause the outer part of the star to explode!
Why do stars explode when they die?
Stars die because they exhaust their nuclear fuel. ... Really massive stars use up their hydrogen fuel quickly but are hot enough to fuse heavier elements such as helium and carbon. Once there is no fuel left, the star collapses, and the outer layers explode as a 'supernova.'
Will the supernova in 2022 destroy Earth?
Risk by supernova type Although they would be spectacular to look at, were these "predictable" supernovae to occur, they are thought to have little potential to affect Earth. It is estimated that a Type II supernova closer than eight parsecs (26 light-years) would destroy more than half of the Earth's ozone layer.
Can Betelgeuse harm us?
No. Whenever Betelgeuse does blow up, our planet Earth is too far away for this explosion to harm, much less destroy, life on Earth. Astrophysicists say we'd have to be within 50 light-years of a supernova for it to harm us. Betelgeuse is nearly 10 times this distance.
1. Approximately one supernova occurs every second. Supernovae happen more often than you might think: one occurs somewhere in the universe every second. However, the
Milky Way only has an average of two supernovae per century, and trying to spot one as it
happens is still very tricky. The last one directly observed in our galaxy was over 400 years ago, and its namesake, Johannes Kepler, considered SN 1604 a new type of star at the time.
2. Most chemical elements are made in a supernova. The normal process inside stars, stellar nucleosynthesis, fuses hydrogen to create the elements, from helium through the periodic table to iron. However, to create the heavier elements through to uranium requires something exponentially hotter and more energetic even than the core of a star – those forces typically found in the instant of a supernova.
3. They’re brighter than a galaxy. For a short period of time, a single supernova can easily outshine an entire galaxy of stars, releasing as much energy in a single burst as our Sun will in its entire 10 billion-year lifespan.
4. Not all supernovae destroy stars. Some stellar explosions don’t destroy their progenitor stars: these are known as stellar impostors, and they’re not true supernovae, although they’re easily mistaken as one. Rather, they’re an especially powerful nova – a phenomenon that causes a star to release large amounts of energy and brighten significantly for a short period.
5. Supernovae can create wonderful remnants. The result of this immense and apparently destructive force is often quite stunning. Some of the most famous stellar objects that we know of today – the go-to targets for astronomers – were created by supernovae that occurred hundreds or thousands of years ago. These classic sights include the Crab Nebula (M1) and Tycho’s Supernova Remnant (SN 1572).
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