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Originally Posted by cventer
Congrats. Was cool to hear how you guys go about this at the conference.
One question I wanted to ask but did not want to sound like a "malin" in French.
Why do astronomers care about finding supernovas ? What's the science behind it ?
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Thank you,
The attached letter is probably the best answer I can give, its written by an astronomer outlining the importance of quick follow up and identifying the progenitor - the star that exploded and that this directly contributes to the science.
In short (and I'm sure others will contribute more detailed science information -SJAstro & Madbadgalaxyman etc)
Type 1a Supernova are a thermonuclear explosion from what is thought to be the mass transfer from a red giant star onto a white dwarf / merging white dwarf stars - this is an area of scientific study at present. They have long been used by astronomers as standard candles in measuring distances to other galaxies, but this maybe under scrutiny. They seed the universe with vast amounts of iron that can be found in your blood - we are star stuff.
Type 2 are giant mass stars that run out of fuel very quickly (literally measured in hundreds of million of years) and implode then explode creating new elements in the stellar furnace. Over time new stars very different to their progenitor stars are born from these furnaces and that's why you are here reading this.
Our talk was basically around the fact that a lot has happened in 2 years since the last AAIC and that some of the discoveries we have made have been followed up by 5 science papers with more to come. These papers have expanded our knowledge of supernova.
You know its important when astronomers can within days get time on the Hubble to image one of the discoveries we made - SN2013ek. There will be a lot of real science about that discovery available in early 2014, and when we can we will be making it available here on IIS.