What is Digg?18 Comments
- TSK05, on 07/27/2008, -1/+7This is such a poorly written article (at least to me, an astronomy major it seems that way but perhaps a graduate can chime in).
"This chain of thought has led Paolo Mazzali and his team to think SN 2008D was produced by an object of a mass at the boundary of a normal supernova and gamma-ray burst."
Boundary between a supernova and a gamma-ray burst? That's like saying boundary between a car and an apple. I assume it means a boundary between a supernova and a hypernova/collapsar type model. That makes more sense but it's not exactly new in theory, it just has not been observed yet.
Here is what happened according to the article (I think..). In a normal supernova, a star collapses into a pulsar and then into a blackhole if it's massive enough (if not it can star a pulsar), the energy is radiated out of the entire surface. In a hypernova type model (there are a few like the collapsar and pair-instability models), a star is so massive that it collapses directly into a blackhole. When this happens, for whatever reason (the reasons are not that clear yet and differ in the models, in the collapsar model it's thought that the star must spin very quickly and this contributes) the entire energy of the collapse is shot out in jets out of the poles and not over the entire surface area of the star, which makes the hypernova a lot more potent in the path of those jets than if the energy had been dissipated over a much bigger surface area. The article says this was a type 1c supernova (and even explains partially what that means which is nice), so there was a helium layer on top of the core of the star. It seems this star was somewhere between the mass needed to make a regular supernova and the mass needed to make a hypernova, which is why it's sort of both. It didn't quite collapse directly into the blackhole perhaps, but it collapsed quickly enough that weak jets were formed and the helium they had to get through weakened them even further so they are fairly weak jets but it's sort of both a hypernova and a supernova because there are jets present (and the star collapsed, which would just be a regular supernova). - inactive, on 07/27/2008, -0/+5this thing would pwn us if it were a little closer.
- AvangionQ, on 07/27/2008, -0/+5"Type 1c supernovae are generated by hydrogen-poor progenitor stars with helium-rich outer layers prior to exploding at the end of their lives." ... finding a new type of supernova event -- proving once again that the universe is often stranger than our imaginations could predict ...
- inactive, on 07/27/2008, -0/+3Oh noes, the gamma ray of death!
- Jhiaxuz, on 07/27/2008, -0/+2The discovery of Gamma Ray Bursts was made when the Americans believed that the Russians were testing nuclear bombs on the dark side of the moon so they sent a satellite to pick up Gamma Radiation.
And now you know.... - Encablossa, on 07/27/2008, -1/+3The only thing that can beat Chuck Norris!
- Shippwreck87, on 07/27/2008, -0/+2HULK SMASH!
- Jarasmen, on 07/27/2008, -0/+2Digg, I'm disappointed. An a article about gamma ray bursts and no one made any comic book references.
- diskit, on 07/27/2008, -0/+2Do they have superpowers yet?
- inactive, on 07/27/2008, -0/+2Supernova and gamma-ray burst hybrid? So by that he means there's a Supernova without gamma-ray burst?
- inactive, on 07/27/2008, -0/+2Nuke it from orbit.
- cutright, on 07/27/2008, -0/+1Your analogy seems a little picky to me. Those within the super-massive stellar research community often refer to GRBs as the object created from a super massive stellar collapse, not just the collimated gamma emission that comes with it. You may be technically correct, but this is the community wide accepted jargon and you'll see this often in massive star literature. Arguing semantics like that is no different than complaining about people "weighing" how "heavy" a star is or using the term molecular "weight".
- warsongs7, on 07/27/2008, -0/+1what he said....
- facepalmjpg, on 07/27/2008, -0/+0Thankfully that's not something we have to worry about.
- Topherstein, on 07/27/2008, -1/+1Save us Dubya! Gamma Rays are WMDs!
- eeron, on 07/27/2008, -2/+1Awesome, you've re-written my poorly written article, I'll be sure to pass your superior science knowledge on to my editor.
Glad you had fun ;-) - miteyMite, on 07/27/2008, -2/+0I've been a Digg viewer for several months. Despite my discourse I've finally convinced ff3 to accept my autologin to this site so that I might easily digg/idss articles. Presently I find myself viewing another science related article that doesn't meet my expectations. BRB while I prove I'm a human being.
- Neversoft, on 07/27/2008, -3/+0Will it blend?
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