If you are hoping to catch a look at M101 or anything else in the night sky, our guides to the best telescopesand best binocularsare a great place to start. Supernova searches fall into two classes: those focused on relatively nearby events and those looking farther away. Because of the expansion of the universe, the distance to a remote object with a known emission spectrum can be estimated by measuring its Doppler shift (or redshift); on average, more-distant objects recede with greater velocity than those nearby, and so have a higher redshift. Thus the search is split between high redshift and low redshift, with the boundary falling around a redshift range of z=0.1–0.3, where z is a dimensionless measure of the spectrum's frequency shift. [47] Toward the end of the 20th century, astronomers increasingly turned to computer-controlled telescopes and CCDs for hunting supernovae. While such systems are popular with amateurs, there are also professional installations such as the Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope. [43] The Supernova Early Warning System (SNEWS) project uses a network of neutrino detectors to give early warning of a supernova in the Milky Way galaxy. [44] [45] Neutrinos are particles that are produced in great quantities by a supernova, and they are not significantly absorbed by the interstellar gas and dust of the galactic disk. [46] "A star set to explode", the SBW1 nebula surrounds a massive blue supergiant in the Carina Nebula. A version of the periodic table indicating the origins – including stellar nucleosynthesis of the elements. (Photo Credit: Cmglee/Wikimedia Commons) The real anticipation now is that we’ll have the trifecta—electromagnetic waves, gravitational waves and neutrinos—from a supernova explosion,” says Ray Jayawardhana, an astronomer at Cornell University. “That would be an incredibly rich source of information and insights.”

In the case of a massive star's sudden implosion, the core of a massive star will undergo sudden collapse once it is unable to produce sufficient energy from fusion to counteract the star's own gravity, which must happen once the star begins fusing iron, but may happen during an earlier stage of metal fusion. Next, gradually heavier elements build up at the center, and the star forms onion-like layers of material, with elements becoming lighter toward the outside of the star. Once the star's core surpasses a certain mass (called the Chandrasekhar limit), it begins to implode. For this reason, these Type-II supernovae are also known as core-collapse supernovae.What we are seeing in this new supernova is a star that is — or was — many times larger and more massive than our own sun. If such a star were to replace the sun in the solar system, it might extend beyond the orbit of Mars. Stars produce their energy by fusing hydrogen into helium deep within their cores. When a star accumulates sufficient helium in its core, its energy output increases significantly, and it swells into a red giant or supergiant, like Betelgeuse in the constellation of Orion. Stars with initial masses less than about 8 M ☉ never develop a core large enough to collapse and they eventually lose their atmospheres to become white dwarfs. Stars with at least 9 M ☉ (possibly as much as 12 M ☉ [114]) evolve in a complex fashion, progressively burning heavier elements at hotter temperatures in their cores. [108] [115] The star becomes layered like an onion, with the burning of more easily fused elements occurring in larger shells. [100] [116] Although popularly described as an onion with an iron core, the least massive supernova progenitors only have oxygen- neon(- magnesium) cores. These super-AGB stars may form the majority of core collapse supernovae, although less luminous and so less commonly observed than those from more massive progenitors. [114] The last supernova directly observed in the Milky Way was Kepler's Supernova in 1604, appearing not long after Tycho's Supernova in 1572, both of which were visible to the naked eye. The remnants of more recent supernovae have been found, and observations of supernovae in other galaxies suggest they occur in the Milky Way on average about three times every century. A supernova in the Milky Way would almost certainly be observable through modern astronomical telescopes. The most recent naked-eye supernova was SN 1987A, which was the explosion of a blue supergiant star in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite of the Milky Way. The sight of a supernova explosion might be awful and mesmerizing at the same time, as the beauty of destruction is not alwayseuphoric, yet these humbling events are the celestial distributors of seeds, the explosive pillars of creation. Louk’s mother, Ricarda, later said: “This morning my daughter, Shani Nicole Louk, a German citizen, was kidnapped with a group of tourists in southern Israel by Palestinian Hamas.

One specific type of supernova originates from exploding white dwarfs, like type Ia, but contains hydrogen lines in their spectra, possibly because the white dwarf is surrounded by an envelope of hydrogen-rich circumstellar material. These supernovae have been dubbed type Ia/IIn, type Ian, type IIa and type IIan. [97]SN 2013fs was recorded three hours after the supernova event on 6 October 2013, by the Intermediate Palomar Transient Factory. This is among the earliest supernovae caught after detonation, and it is the earliest for which spectra have been obtained, beginning at six hours after the actual explosion. The star is located in a spiral galaxy named NGC 7610, 160million light-years away in the constellation of Pegasus. [36] [37] A supernova is the explosion of a massive star. There are many different types of supernovae, but they can be broadly separated into two main types: thermonuclear runaway or core-collapse. This first type happens in binary star systems where at least one star is a white dwarf, and they're typically called Type Ia SNe. The second type happens when stars with masses greater than 8 times the mass of our sun collapse in on themselves and explode. There are many different subtypes of each of these SNe, each classified by the elements seen in their spectra. What happens after a supernova? This Chandra X-ray photograph shows Cassiopeia A (Cas A, for short), the youngest supernova remnant in the Milky Way. (Image credit: NASA/CXC/MIT/UMass Amherst/M.D.Stage et al.) Type I supernovas

That is what we're seeing now, although actually, the star bursting apart did not occur this past Friday, for M101 is located at a distance of roughly 21 million light-years from Earth. There are several means by which a supernova of this type can form, but they share a common underlying mechanism. If a carbon- oxygen white dwarf accreted enough matter to reach the Chandrasekhar limit of about 1.44 solar masses [77] (for a non-rotating star), it would no longer be able to support the bulk of its mass through electron degeneracy pressure [78] [79] and would begin to collapse. However, the current view is that this limit is not normally attained; increasing temperature and density inside the core ignite carbon fusion as the star approaches the limit (to within about 1%) [80] before collapse is initiated. [77] In contrast, for a core primarily composed of oxygen, neon and magnesium, the collapsing white dwarf will typically form a neutron star. In this case, only a fraction of the star's mass will be ejected during the collapse. [79] The blue spot at the centre of the red ring is an isolated neutron star in the Small Magellanic Cloud. Type II supernova sub-categories are classified based on their light curves, which describe how the intensity of the light changes over time. The light of Type II-L supernovas declines steadily after the explosion, while the light of Type II-P supernovas stays steady for a longer period before diminishing. Both types have the signature of hydrogen in their spectra.

supernova

a. In the re-ignition of a white dwarf, the object's temperature is raised enough to trigger runaway nuclear fusion, completely disrupting the star. Possible causes are an accumulation of material from a binary companion through accretion, or by a stellar merger. A white dwarf star may accumulate sufficient material from a stellar companion to raise its core temperature enough to ignite carbon fusion, at which point it undergoes runaway nuclear fusion, completely disrupting it. There are three avenues by which this detonation is theorised to happen: stable accretion of material from a companion, the collision of two white dwarfs, or accretion that causes ignition in a shell that then ignites the core. The dominant mechanism by which type Ia supernovae are produced remains unclear. [74] Despite this uncertainty in how type Ia supernovae are produced, type Ia supernovae have very uniform properties and are useful standard candles over intergalactic distances. Some calibrations are required to compensate for the gradual change in properties or different frequencies of abnormal luminosity supernovae at high redshift, and for small variations in brightness identified by light curve shape or spectrum. [75] [76] Normal Type Ia [ edit ]

It is now known by direct observation that much of the light curve (the graph of luminosity as a function of time) after the occurrence of a type II Supernova, such as SN 1987A, is explained by those predicted radioactive decays. [8] Although the luminous emission consists of optical photons, it is the radioactive power absorbed by the ejected gases that keeps the remnant hot enough to radiate light. The radioactive decay of 56Ni through its daughters 56Co to 56Fe produces gamma-ray photons, primarily with energies of 847 keV and 1,238keV, that are absorbed and dominate the heating and thus the luminosity of the ejecta at intermediate times (several weeks) to late times (several months). [147] Energy for the peak of the light curve of SN1987A was provided by the decay of 56Ni to 56Co (half-life 6 days) while energy for the later light curve in particular fit very closely with the 77.3-day half-life of 56Co decaying to 56Fe. Later measurements by space gamma-ray telescopes of the small fraction of the 56Co and 57Co gamma rays that escaped the SN 1987A remnant without absorption confirmed earlier predictions that those two radioactive nuclei were the power sources. [146] Messier 61 with supernova SN2020jfo, taken by an amateur astronomer in 2020 The IceCube Laboratory at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica is the first gigaton neutrino detector ever built. Supernovae that do not fit into the normal classifications are designated peculiar, or "pec". [61] Types III, IV, and V [ edit ]So the resultant light from this explosion has been traveling through space for 21 million years before it finally reached our planet last week. The so-called classic explosion, associated with Type II supernovae, has as progenitor a very massive star (a Population I star) of at least eight solar masses that is at the end of its active lifetime. (These are seen only in spiral galaxies, most often near the arms.) Until this stage of its evolution, the star has shone by means of the nuclear energy released at and near its core in the process of squeezing and heating lighter elements such as hydrogen or helium into successively heavier elements—i.e., in the process of nuclear fusion. Forming elements heavier than iron absorbs rather than produces energy, however, and, since energy is no longer available, an iron core is built up at the centre of the aging, heavyweight star. When the iron core becomes too massive, its ability to support itself by means of the outward explosive thrust of internal fusion reactions fails to counteract the tremendous pull of its own gravity. Consequently, the core collapses. If the core’s mass is less than about three solar masses, the collapse continues until the core reaches a point at which its constituent nuclei and free electrons are crushed together into a hard, rapidly spinning core. This core consists almost entirely of neutrons, which are compressed in a volume only 20 km (12 miles) across but whose combined weight equals that of several Suns. A teaspoonful of this extraordinarily dense material would weigh 50 billion tons on Earth. Such an object is called a neutron star. Astronomers classify supernovae according to their light curves and the absorption lines of different chemical elements that appear in their spectra. If a supernova's spectrum contains lines of hydrogen (known as the Balmer series in the visual portion of the spectrum) it is classified Type II; otherwise it is Type I. In each of these two types there are subdivisions according to the presence of lines from other elements or the shape of the light curve (a graph of the supernova's apparent magnitude as a function of time). [60] [61] Supernova taxonomy [60] [61] Type I When 1987A blew up, neutrino science was in its infancy—even so, two dozen neutrinos were recorded by three detectors working at the time. If a supernova explodes within our galaxy now, the global network of detectors will record hundreds or even thousands of neutrinos.