Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The Biology of Supernovae

2013; Springer International Publishing; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1007/978-1-4614-8136-2_1

2197-6651

David S. Stevenson,

Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae

Stars shredded into pieces and nearby planets boiling away are among the images conjured up by the word “supernova.” Shockwaves pound outwards and turn rocky asteroids into cometary fluff, driving planetary shards from their orbits and showering neighboring star systems with waves of deadly radiation. It’s dramatic stuff. But what really happens inside the blast wave of a supernova, and, more importantly how can we explain all the different forms of explosion that are emerging from automated supernova searches? This book explores these violent and sometimes strange landscapes, populated by the corpses of tortured stars. Recent observations have revealed a wealth of new types of explosion, as well as illuminating the underlying mechanisms of how stars explode.