Starship Asterisk*

You mean "supernova", don't you? A "nova" is just a sudden brightening of a star, usually a white dwarf or a neutron star in a binary system, not a violent event like a supernova. As for the safe distance, I don't remember exactly, buty I think the supernova would have to be more...

Not wanting to squabble, but the term "nova" usually refers to a sudden brightening of a star, usually a white dwarf or a neutron star in a binary system like this one, caused by an explosion on the surface of the star due to accumulation of material drawn from the larger companion. This e...

What about this?

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap051004.html

Imagine yourself floating somewhere far from the solar system, looking towards the Galactic Center!

Harry, A single blackhole, even of the supermassive variety, cannot produce all the expelled clouds! Only supernovae, with help of strong wind from young, hot, massive stars, can do it. Any jets emanating from a blackhole would be very narrow rather than spreaded out. Please read the explanations th...

No, it isn't a black hole creating this "pollution". :D Not even the supermassive black hole that may lurk in the center of the galaxy. It was the interaction or a series of close encounters with the nearby galaxy M81 at least 100 million years ago that triggered a very intense star format...

Dave, Now I remember that APOD posting. Gads, was it 5 years ago?! Thanks for the reminder. Unfortunately, some of the links in the explanation no longer exist. There is a neat movie of a neutron star merger in the link "collision" showing the two stars merging over (!) the Atlantic Ocean,...

Qev

Not only jewelry, but also you, me, and everything else. We are all made of stardust!

gary

ta152h0 I mentioned the next part of Pogge's lecture in my last post. It explains how the rest of the periodic table is created during a supernova. I will give the link here. http://www-astronomy.mps.ohio-state.edu/~pogge/Ast162/Unit3/supernova.html Dave H I am not sure if a merger of two neutron st...

At the bottom of the page in the link above, be sure to click on "next lecture". It will show you what happens when the core reaches the iron stage!

BOOOOOOOOM!!!!

gary

Harry, For a high-mass star (more than 8 solar masses), it will be after helium fusion...LONG after helium fusion. Before the star will explode (as a Type II supernova), the star's core will have to go through not only helium burning, but also in sequence, carbon-oxygen burning, neon burning, anothe...

Harry, It seems to me that you and the authors in that link have a fundamental misunderstanding of what a neutron star is. I would be surprised if those authors' paper was accepted for publication as they simply didn't know what they were talking about! They are chemists, not astrophysicists! What i...

:roll: jfgecik, what are your REAL reasons for not believing that global warming is actually happening due to human activities? Are you afraid that if it is true, you would be forced to cut back your wasteful lifestyle of driving gas guzzlers, living in a big house burning incandescent lamps and set...

You are a peace maker Gary but I have to say nice try but no cigar you wrote "They have hypotheses, such as matter and anti-matter twin popping in and out of vacuum. " Now that was very sweet and very gentle and for this I respect you but this is no hypotheses it's fact and you can verify...

:roll: Hi, guys! I just read through this topic, and I can only shake my head at some of the posts here. A lot of misunderstandings and ignorance shown here could have been avoided if some of you took the trouble to use Google or some other search engine to research a lot of space facts. There are a...