Lonely Supernovae May Have Been Kicked Out Of Their Galaxies
Tech 8/08/2014 @ 4:38AM 30 views
Lonely Supernovae May Have Been Kicked Out Of Their Galaxies
Space is a pretty vast place and most of it consists of just that – space. Galaxies tend to be in clusters and stars tend to bunch together into galaxies. Which is why the Universe’s loneliest supernovae are interesting to scientists.
So-called calcium-rich transients are luminous explosions that are neither as bright nor as long as traditional supernovae and take place out in the metaphorical middle of nowhere. Previous studies of these mysterious events have also found that calcium makes up as much as half of the material thrown into space by the starbursts, compared to only a fraction in normal supernovae. That makes it likely that these strange stellar explosions are the dominant source of calcium in the Universe.
Dr Joseph Lyman of the University of Warwick and his team got some time on the Very Large Telescope in Chile and the Hubble Space Telescope to try to figure out how these events happen so far from their neighbours.
“ These are very much a new class of supernova and so studies remain in their infancy ,” Lyman told Forbes.
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University of Warwick researchers explain mystery of the loneliest supernovas. Compact binary star systems that have been thrown
far from their host galaxy when one star of that pair became a neutron star, go through a second trauma when the remaining
white dwarf star is eventually pulled onto the neutron star. (Credit: Mark A. Garlick / space-art.co.uk / University of Warwick)[/font]
More:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/bridaineparnell/2014/08/08/lonely-supernovae-may-have-been-kicked-out-of-their-galaxies/