Posts

Showing posts with the label supernova

James Webb detects his first supernova 3 billion light years from Earth

Image
The brilliant light detected by NASA’s James Webb Telescope (JWST) three billion light years from Earth is believed to be the first $10 billion scope observation of a dying star’s explosion. Officially known as a supernova, it is the ‘last hurray’ that occurs when a star runs out of fuel. This causes the pressure to drop, where the cosmic object expands to at least five times the mass of our sun – which is about 333,000 Earths in size – and then explodes, releasing tons of debris and particles. A stellar explosion occurred in the galaxy SDSS.J141930.11+5251593, where a JWST image showed an object’s light dimming in the span of five days – a clue that fueled the supernova theory. Also of interest is the fact that JWST was not designed to find and detect new transients, Mike Engesser of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), told Inverse, which first reported the discovery. Scroll down for the video Not only did James Webb see the supernova, but astronomers were baffled by

This Runaway Star Penetrates Space at More Than 160,000 Kilometers Per Hour

Image
Not all stars enjoy just wandering around, orbiting the galactic center with all the other stars. Some stars go rogue, crossing the Milky Way with significant force. It is a runaway star, and we can trace its trajectory to understand the violent events that could occur in the Universe. One such star, and one of the more famous ones, is Zeta Ophiuchi. Located about 440 light-years from Earth in the equatorial constellation Ophiuchus, it is also one of the strangest stars in the sky. Not only is it incredibly fast, at about 30 to 40 kilometers (roughly 20 to 25 miles) per second, but it’s a strange type of star to see roaring in space. Zeta Ophiuchi is the main sequence star; that is, one that still combines hydrogen into helium in its core. And it’s a hot, massive O-type star: about 20 times the mass of the Sun, glowing blue with intense heat. Such stars also have relatively short lives; Zeta Ophiuchi is about half way past the main sequence’s projected age of 8 million years. Tha