Trigger Found For Tycho Brahe's Supernova

[zavvy]

<b>Trigger Found For Tycho Brahe's Supernova</b><br /><br />LINK<br /><br />Observations around a 400-year-old supernova have revealed the 'companion star' that may have caused the blast. Astronomers believe the star fed a white dwarf until, massive and unstable, the dwarf exploded in a gargantuan ball of light and energy.<br /><br />The 1572 supernova was bright enough to intrigue Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe, who meticulously recorded its position and changing brightness in a tract called De Nova et Nullius Aevi Memoria Prius Visa Stella, which translates as On the New and Never Previously Seen Star.<br /><br />Brahe, who famously lost a chunk of his nose in a duel and replaced the missing bit with moulded silver alloy, was a great stickler for accurate measurement. Thanks to him, modern astronomers can classify this explosion as a 'type 1a' supernova.<br /><br />Type 1a supernovae are all approximately of the same actual brightness. This useful homogeneity makes it possible to guess how far away they are by measuring how bright they seem to our eyes here on Earth.<br /><br />Like most supernovae, they are thought to come about when a white dwarf (a smallish, old, cooling star) accretes mass by sucking it off another star that it rotates around, until it gets too big and blows up. However, no one knew what kind of star this companion might be: a giant, a regular star, or perhaps another dwarf. <br /><br />Kicked out<br /><br />Pilar Ruiz-Lapuente of the University of Barcelona, Spain, wanted to know, so she gathered together an international team of astronomers to look at all the stars around the now-dim blast site for certain unusual features.<br /><br />The former companion would have been kicked out of its binary orbit and been accelerated by the power of the supernova, so the researchers knew it would be moving faster than the other stars in the vicinity. At the far edge of their search radi

 

[tom_hobbes]

Reminds me of that arthur C Clarke story, <i>The Star</i> or <i>The Star Of Bethlehem</i>. In the future astronauts travel to the remnants of a supernova for some reason, I can't remember, and find burnt out husks of planets and the civilisations which perished on them. The protagonist, a jesuit physicist has a crisis of faith when he calculates that this was the star which shone over Bethlehem. Makes you wonder... <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font size="2" color="#339966"> I wish I could remember<br /> But my selective memory<br /> Won't let me</font><font size="2" color="#99cc00"> </font><font size="3" color="#339966"><font size="2">- </font></font><font size="1" color="#339966">Mark Oliver Everett</font></p><p> </p> </div>

 

[Maddad]

Thanks for the article, zavvy.