EXPLOSION MECHANISM OF SUPERNOVA (SPACE SCIENCE)

SPACE SCIENCE (PIB)

Science (Astronomy)

Explosion mechanism of supernovae

Why in News?

Study by Indian Astronomers provides clues to explosion mechanism of supernovae (April 28, 2021)

The Study

• A team of Indian astronomers observed distant supernovae, and narrowed down the possible mechanisms of explosion of such supernovae which provide key measures of cosmological distances.
• The study was on a supernova called SN 2017hpa, a particular type of supernovae called Ia supernova, which exploded in 2017 helped narrow down the mechanism of the supernovae explosion by observations of unburned carbon in the early phase spectra.
• (2011) Nobel Prize was awarded to three scientists for discovery of Universe expanding at an ever-accelerating rate through observations of distant supernovae.

About

• Supernova is the explosive death of a star the most spectacular and catastrophic events in the Universe ever to human eyes.
• Type Ia supernovae are the result of explosions of white dwarfs that exceed their mass beyond the Chandrasekhar limit through accretion of matter.
• Most SNeIa are of Homogeneous nature; makes them extremely good standards to measure cosmological distances. But a good fraction of these events show diversity in both their light curve as well as spectral properties.
• The explosion mechanisms which create these supernovae (SNe), and the exact nature of their progenitor systems (star which is at the origin of a supernova phenomenon) are not clearly understood.

                                                                                    Source: Press Information Bureau

source of featured image: forbes