Earthsky Interviews
Private: J. Craig Wheeler describes the biggest star explosions ever
12-19-2007 - Space
EarthSky spoke with astronomer J. Craig Wheeler of the University of Texas at Austin, who was on the discovery team. His graduate student at the time, Robert Quimby, found two supernovae within just months of each other. One was about 50 billion times brighter than our sun, and the other was twice as bright – 100 billion times brighter.
J. Craig Wheeler: They were very massive, they could, as they evolve from hydrogen to helium, and helium to heavier elements like oxygen, they could get hot enough that they would create electron-positron pairs, little dabs of matter and antimatter. And in these theoretical models that was predicted that the star would contract, ignite its oxygen fuel in a thermonuclear way, blow the star up entirely in a massive explosion.
Wheeler said Robert Quimby found these supernovae because he cast a wider net in seeking exploding stars.
J. Craig Wheeler: And we’re still kind of scratching our heads to understand why a graduate student, basically working on his own with a very tiny telescope found the brightest supernovae ever when there’s lots and lots of people searching for supernovae all over the place.
Our thanks to Research Corporation, America’s first foundation for science advancement.
Our thanks to:
J. Craig Wheeler
University of Texas at Austin
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