[HN Gopher] JWST Captures Image of Supernova That 'Absolutely Sh... ___________________________________________________________________ JWST Captures Image of Supernova That 'Absolutely Shattered' a Star Author : Brajeshwar Score : 110 points Date : 2023-12-14 16:19 UTC (6 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.smithsonianmag.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.smithsonianmag.com) | squigz wrote: | Isn't that what every supernova does? | djbusby wrote: | And it's super awesome every time! | jsbisviewtiful wrote: | "Shattered" seems like an odd way of describing it but at some | level... sure. | JumpCrisscross wrote: | > _"Shattered" seems like an odd way of describing it_ | | Would love for an astrophysicist to pine in. But my | understanding is supernovae are usually balanced enough to | squeeze their stars' cores. This appears to have been | unbalanced such that the core was "broken" instead of | uniformly compressed. | zethus wrote: | Some stars survive supernovae, and are known as zombie stars | [1]. One believed example is SN2012Z [2] | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie_star | | [2] | https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ac3bbd/... | squigz wrote: | Neat! Thanks for sharing! Space is crazy :) | falcrist wrote: | Here I was thinking "zombie star" was another term for ANY | stellar remnant like a white dwarf or neutron star. | hinkley wrote: | I thought, surely they mean a supernova obliterated a companion | star, but you're right. They're talking about the exploding | star. | | Is this noteworthy because we've seen it, rather than that it | exists? How many novae cores have we imaged before? | chasil wrote: | Type 1A supernovas are completely destroyed in the process of | their explosions. | | The others usually retain their core, either as a neutron star | or the final collapse to a black hole. | mensetmanusman wrote: | It's kind of fun to think that at any moment something might pop | and our entire solar system would disappear in a blink of an eye. | lostapathy wrote: | Our sun isn't massive enough to ever go supernova. | TheEzEzz wrote: | Supernova are powerful enough that even a star in a different | solar system going nova can kill you, if it's a "nearby" | system. But I believe there aren't any stars close enough | that would go supernova any time soon. | rnk wrote: | It's always the one you don't expect that gets you. | jsbisviewtiful wrote: | A good premise for a sci-fi series: In the distant future, | a large fleet of earth's best and brightest travels the | stars while desperately trying to invent Earth's last | ditch-effort to save its 12 billion inhabitants from a | soon-to-be cataclysmic, near-earth supernovae: FTL travel. | After decades of progress finally nears fruition, the fleet | permanently loses contact with earth; humanity's home Solar | System's remnants lost to the beautiful, nightmare... The | fleet of 80,000 now works to save itself, the last of | humanity. | ceejayoz wrote: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-Earth_supernova | | It wouldn't wipe out the solar system, but might have harmful | impacts on our biosphere. | strictnein wrote: | Reporting from two hours in the future (relatively): hasn't | happened yet. | robotresearcher wrote: | If the sun went pop, the Earth wouldn't notice for more than | eight minutes, and Neptune not for 4 hours. | quickthrower2 wrote: | If the cause of the pop is moving at the speed of light too. | But if it wasn't we might get an early warning. | cosmotic wrote: | Links to the full res images (under Download Options): | https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2023/149/01H... | amelius wrote: | Where can I download the time-lapse video? | omgJustTest wrote: | It's streaming live right now! | AlecSchueler wrote: | Where!? | ltbarcly3 wrote: | Right, big explosion, easier to see. Typical solar toxicity. I | can't wait for it to detect a gentle supernova, gently whisping a | luliby to its exoplanets. | strictnein wrote: | Was wondering what the width of the image we're seeing is, so I | did some quick googling: | | > The expanding cloud of material left over from the supernova | now appears approximately 10 light-years (3 pc) across from | Earth's perspective | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassiopeia_A | MKais wrote: | > Chandra's study revealed the amounts of different elements | produced by the explosion. The supernova has spat out 10,000 | times the mass of the Earth in sulfur, 20,000 times Earth's mass | in silicon, 70,000 Earth masses of iron and a million Earth | masses of oxygen. | | Mind went supernova | JohannesH wrote: | Wow it is absolutely fascinating and awe-inspiring. Anybody know | what the blob (looks like wavy gold foil) in the bottom right of | the picture is? | JohannesH wrote: | Should have read the description. | | > There are also several light echoes visible in this image, | most notably in the bottom right corner. This is where light | from the star's long-ago explosion has reached, and is warming | distant dust, which is glowing as it cools down. | humble_ant wrote: | Fair to say this happened 11,000 years ago? | AlecSchueler wrote: | Equally fair to say it's happening right now depending on your | frame of reference. | shortrounddev2 wrote: | I'm looking at older pics of Cassiopeia A from the Hubble | telescope, and it looks substantially different. How much time | needs to pass before a supernova is visibly different? My | instinct was that something like this would change over thousands | of millions of years, but I'm guessing that's wrong | crtified wrote: | How quickly do the (damaging to nearby solar systems etc) effects | of a supernova propagate through space, in relation to the speed | of light? | | Or, to put it another way, could we detect the damaging effects | of a nearby supernova expanding towards us _before_ those effects | actually hit us? And if so, by what factor? | Scaevolus wrote: | The radiation propagates at light speed, but the harmless | neutrinos reach us a few hours before the potentially dangerous | X-rays and gamma rays. A supernova would have to be within | roughly 160 light years to be damaging to Earth. | | https://news.fnal.gov/2019/03/waiting-for-neutrinos/ | | https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/safe-distance-from... | deskamess wrote: | > The star collapses in an explosion | | Can anyone explain the above phrase? | its_ethan wrote: | This might be helpful: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernova#Core_collapse | | I'm not an expert, but an analogy here could perhaps be if you | drop a cup of water on the floor (assuming it doesn't break) | some of that water is going to rebound on itself/the cup, and | will splash upwards. That would be gravitational potential | energy being converted to kinetic energy, causing material to | be ejected. | | With stars, there is a TON of gravitational potential energy, | and so when it's converted to kinetic energy during a collapse, | you "explode" the lighter weight outer layers of the star away | from the more dense core. Some of the stars core remains, and | can become either a neutron star or a black hole. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-12-14 23:00 UTC)