Astronomers glimpse supernova shockwave

Astronomers have captured the earliest minutes of two exploding stars and for the first time seen a shockwave generated by a star's collapsing core.

A new technique to gauge the distant universe

Scientists have developed a technique to use quasars – powerful sources driven by supermassive black holes at the centre of galaxies – to study the universe's history and composition. To demonstrate the new method, based ...

Supernova twins: Making standard candles more standard than ever

Less than 20 years ago the world learned that the universe is expanding ever faster, propelled by dark energy. The discovery was made possible by Type Ia supernovae; extraordinarily bright and remarkably similar in brightness, ...

Supernova ignition surprises scientists

Scientists have captured the early death throes of supernovae for the first time and found that the universe's benchmark explosions are much more varied than expected.

Gaia discovers its first supernova

(Phys.org) —While scanning the sky to measure the positions and movements of stars in our Galaxy, Gaia has discovered its first stellar explosion in another galaxy far, far away.

Chandra observatory searches for trigger of nearby supernova

(Phys.org) —New data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory offer a glimpse into the environment of a star before it exploded earlier this year, and insight into what triggered one of the closest supernovas witnessed in ...

Supernovae and the origin of cosmic rays

(Phys.org) —In the spring of the year 1006, one thousand and seven years ago this April, observers in China, Egypt, Iraq, Japan, Switzerland (and perhaps North America) reported seeing what might be the brightest stellar ...

SN 1006: X-ray view of a thousand-year-old cosmic tapestry

(Phys.org) —This year, astronomers around the world have been celebrating the 50th anniversary of X-ray astronomy. Few objects better illustrate the progress of the field in the past half-century than the supernova remnant ...

Cassini sheds light on cosmic particle accelerators

(Phys.org)—During a chance encounter with what appears to be an unusually strong blast of solar wind at Saturn, NASA's Cassini spacecraft detected particles being accelerated to ultra-high energies. This is similar to the ...

Distant super-luminous supernovae found

(Phys.org)—Two 'super-luminous' supernovae - stellar explosions 10 to 100 times brighter than other supernova types - have been detected in the distant Universe.

page 2 from 4