When supernovas die, the most obvious thing to us on earth is a quatdramatic optical display in an inner sky. In 19 87, there was a near by supan over well and that generated a vast number of nutrinos. Nutrinos act as an early warning system that there's been a corclaps supernover. And so these days, there ere all sorts of astronomers around the world who plug into the alert from these nutrino detectors. If there is one, they will tell us that a corcalaps supernove is coming, and that we shall go and look for it. But after that, ever since we've had
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the abrupt transformation of stars after shining brightly for millions or billions of years, once they lack the fuel to counter the force of gravity. Those like our own star, the Sun, become red giants, expanding outwards and consuming nearby planets, only to collapse into dense white dwarves. The massive stars, up to fifty times the mass of the Sun, burst into supernovas, visible from Earth in daytime, and become incredibly dense neutron stars or black holes. In these moments of collapse, the intense heat and pressure can create all the known elements to form gases and dust which may eventually combine to form new stars, new planets and, as on Earth, new life.
The image above is of the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A, approximately 10,000 light years away, from a once massive star that died in a supernova explosion that was first seen from Earth in 1690
With
Martin Rees
Astronomer Royal, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge
Carolin Crawford
Emeritus Member of the Institute of Astronomy and Emeritus Fellow of Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge
And
Mark Sullivan
Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Southampton
Producer: Simon Tillotson