2007-11-06T07:09:00.000-08:00

Supernova

A supernova (plural: supernovae or supernovas) is a stellar explosion that creates an extremely luminous object. A supernova causes a burst of radiation that may briefly outshine its entire host galaxy before fading from view over several weeks or months. During this short interval, a supernova can radiate as much energy as the Sun would emit over 10 billion years.[1] The explosion expels much or all of a star's material[2] at a velocity of up to a tenth the speed of light, driving a shock wave into the surrounding interstellar medium. This shock wave sweeps up an expanding shell of gas and dust called a supernova remnant.
Several types of supernovae exist that may be triggered in one of two ways, involving either turning off or suddenly turning on the production of energy through nuclear fusion. After the core of an aging massive star ceases to generate energy from nuclear fusion, it may undergo sudden gravitational collapse into a neutron star or black hole, releasing gravitational potential energy that heats and expels the star's outer layers. Alternatively, a white dwarf star may accumulate sufficient material from a stellar companion (usually through accretion, rarely via a merger) to raise its core temperature enough to ignite carbon fusion, at which point it undergoes runaway nuclear fusion, completely disrupting it. Stellar cores whose furnaces have permanently gone out collapse when their masses exceed the Chandrasekhar limit, while accreting white dwarfs ignite as they approach this limit (roughly 1.38[3] times the mass of the Sun). White dwarfs are also subject to a different, much smaller type of thermonuclear explosion fueled by hydrogen on their surfaces called a nova. Solitary stars with a mass below approximately nine[4] solar masses, such as the Sun itself, evolve into white dwarfs without ever becoming supernovae.
On average, a supernova occurs about once every 50 years in a galaxy the size of the Milky Way [5] and play a significant role in enriching the interstellar medium with heavy elements. Furthermore, the expanding shock waves from supernova explosions can trigger the formation of new stars.[6]
Nova (plural novae) means "new" in Latin, referring to what appears to be a very bright new star shining in the celestial sphere; the prefix "super" distinguishes supernovae from ordinary novae, which also involve a star increasing in brightness, though to a lesser extent and through a different mechanism. According to Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, the word supernova was first used in print in 1926.

Observation history

The earliest recorded supernova, SN 185, was viewed by Chinese astronomers in AD 185. The widely observed supernova of SN 1054 produced the Crab Nebula. Supernovae SN 1572 and SN 1604, the last to be observed in the Milky Way galaxy, had notable effects on the development of astronomy in Europe because they were used to argue against the Aristotelian idea that the world beyond the Moon and planets was immutable.[7]
Since the development of the telescope, the field of supernova discovery has enlarged to other galaxies, starting with the 1885 observation of supernova S Andromedae in the Andromeda galaxy. Supernovae provide important information on cosmological distances.[8] During the twentieth century, successful models for each type of supernova were developed, and scientists' comprehension of the role of supernovae in the star formation process is growing.
Some of the most distant supernovae recently observed appeared dimmer than expected. This has provided evidence that the expansion of the universe may be accelerating.[9][10]

Discovery
Because supernovae are relatively rare events, occurring about once every 50 years in a galaxy like the Milky Way,[5] many galaxies must be monitored regularly in order to obtain a good sample of supernovae to study.
Supernovae in other galaxies cannot be predicted with any meaningful accuracy. When they are discovered, they are already in progress.[11] Most scientific interest in supernovae—as standard candles for measuring distance, for example—require an observation of their peak luminosity. It is therefore important to discover them well before they reach their maximum. Amateur astronomers, who greatly outnumber professional astronomers, have played an important role in finding supernovae, typically by looking at some of the closer galaxies through an optical telescope and comparing them to earlier photographs.
Towards 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 larger installations like the Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope.[12] Recently, the Supernova Early Warning System (SNEWS) project has also begun using a network of neutrino detectors to give early warning of a supernova in the Milky Way galaxy.[13][14] A neutrino is a particle that is produced in great quantities by a supernova explosion,[15] and it is not obscured by the interstellar gas and dust of the galactic disk.
Supernova searches fall into two classes: those focused on relatively nearby events and those looking for explosions 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[16]—where z is a dimensionless measure of the spectrum's frequency shift.
High redshift searches for supernovae usually involve the observation of supernova light curves. These are useful for standard or calibrated candles to generate Hubble diagrams and make cosmological predictions. At low redshift, supernova spectroscopy is more practical than at high redshift, and this is used to study the physics and environments of supernovae.[17][18] Low redshift observations also anchor the low distance end of the Hubble curve, which is a plot of distance versus redshift for visible galaxies.[19][20]

Naming convention

Supernova discoveries are reported to the International Astronomical Union's Central Burea u for Astronomical Telegrams, which sends out a circular with the name it assigns to it. The name is formed by the year of discovery, immediately followed by a one or two-letter designation. The first 26 supernovae of the year get designated with an upper case letter from A to Z. Afterward, pairs of lower-case letters are used, starting with aa, ab, and so on.[21] Professional and amateur astronomers find several hundred supernovae per year (in recent years: 367 in 2005 and 551 in 2006). For example, the last supernova of 2005 was SN 2005nc, indicating that it was the 367th supernova found in 2005.[22][23]
Historical supernovae are known simply by the year they occurred: SN 185, SN 1006, SN 1054, SN 1572 (Tycho's Nova), and SN 1604 (Kepler's Star). Beginning in 1885, the letter notation is used, even if there was only one supernova discovered that year (e.g. SN 1885A, 1907A, etc.)—this last happened with SN 1947A. The standard abbreviation "SN" is an optional prefix.

Classification
As part of the attempt to understand supernovae, astronomers have classified them according to the absorption lines of different chemical elements that appear in their spectra. The first element for a division is the presence or absence of a line caused by hydrogen. If a supernova's spectrum contains a line of hydrogen (known as the Balmer series in the visual portion of the spectrum) it is classified Type II; otherwise it is Type I. Among those types, there are subdivisions according to the presence of lines from other elements and the shape of the light curve (a graph of the supernova's apparent magnitude versus time).[24]