ASTRAL ° a s t r o n o m y f a c t s

[no.10] supernovae

THE LIFECYCLE OF A STAR:

WHAT IS A SUPERNOVA?

•Definition: A supernova
(/ˌsuːpərnoʊvə/ plural: supernovae) is a transient astronomical event that occurs during the last stellar evolutionary stages of a star's life, either a massive star or a white dwarf, whose destruction is marked by one final, titanic explosion. This causes the sudden appearance of a "new" bright star, before slowly fading from sight over several weeks or months.

In Latin, nova means "new", referring astronomically to what appears to be a temporary new bright star. Adding the prefix "super-" distinguishes supernovae from ordinary novae, which are far less luminous. The word supernova was coined by Walter Baade and Fritz Zwicky in 1931.

•Supernovae may expel much, if not all, of the material away from a star at velocities up to 30,000 km/s or 10% of the speed of light. This drives an expanding and fast-moving shock wave into the surrounding interstellar medium, and in turn, sweeping up an expanding shell of gas and dust, which is observed as a supernova remnant. Supernovae create, fuse and eject the bulk of the chemical elements produced by nucleosynthesis*. Supernovae play a significant role in enriching the interstellar medium with the heavier atomic mass chemical elements. Furthermore, the expanding shock waves from supernovae can trigger the formation of new stars. Supernova remnants are expected to accelerate a large fraction of galactic primary cosmic rays, but direct evidence for cosmic ray production was found only in a few of them so far. They are also potentially strong galactic sources of gravitational waves.

*Nucleosynthesis is the process that creates new atomic nuclei from pre-existing nucleons, primarily protons and neutrons.

EXAMPLES OF SUPERNOVAE:

i) Supernova 1987A.

ii) Remnant of supernova toward the constellation of Vela, which exploded 11,000 years ago.

iii) The highly distorted supernova remnant shown in this image may contain the most recent black hole formed in the Milky Way galaxy. The image combines X-rays from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory in blue and green, radio data from the NSF's Very Large Array in pink, and infrared data from Caltech's Palomar Observatory in yellow.