What Happens When a Star Explodes [VIDEO]
Feb 20, 2014 19:34
We all know it's disaster time when a star explodes, but what exactly happens when one goes supernova? NASA has created the first ever map of it revealing one of the biggest mysteries in the universe.
Check out how stars blow up in these explosions:
The 3D simulation shows the explosion process in Cassiopeia A, rendered from data recorded by the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR).
Fiona Harrison—principal investigator of NuSTAR at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena—explains:
Check out how stars blow up in these explosions:
The 3D simulation shows the explosion process in Cassiopeia A, rendered from data recorded by the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR).
Fiona Harrison—principal investigator of NuSTAR at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena—explains:
Stars are spherical balls of gas, and so you might think that when they end their lives and explode, that explosion would look like a uniform ball expanding out with great power. Our new results show how the explosion's heart, or engine, is distorted, possibly because the inner regions literally slosh around before detonating.
Here's an actual image of Cassiopeia A.
