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supernovae
SN2009ip: Dead or Just Resting?
When the supernova impostor SN2009ip brightened to a V-band absolute magnitude of -17.7 near the end of 2012, the outburst was classified as a Type IIn supernova and many observers thought the star had finally exploded for good. In this paper, however, the authors present several months of multiband imaging of transient 2012b and argue that the low limit on the nickel mass and lack of most heavy elements in the ejecta suggest the progenitor is still around, and that transient 2012b was produced instead by the collision of two massive shells, possibly ejected by the pulsational pair instability.
Evidence for two distinct populations of Type Ia Supernovae
Type Ia Supernovae are extensively used in astronomy research, but the progenitors of these massive explosions are still not well understood. This paper discusses new evidence that there are two distinct populations of type Ia supernovae, and that they originate from different stellar populations.
Going Big with LOFAR
Check out these cool new results from LOFAR which is boldly going to some of the longest wavelengths astronomers have ever observed! An active galaxy has a less active past than we might expect, pulsating neutron stars are behaving strangely, and even at wavelengths as long as meters, there are still spectral lines from extremely low-energy atomic transitions.
The Top 12 of 2012
What were astronomers reading and talking about in their research last year? Check out figures from the top 12 most-cited astronomy papers from 2012 (so far) and find out what researchers were up to and why!
Exploding diamonds in the sky
Pakmor et al. propose a new mechanism to make Type 1a supernova explosions from a pair of white dwarfs.
Super-simple supernovae: a simple model for Type Ia light curves
A simple analytical model for the light curves of Type Ia supernovae.
Are We Seeing Common Envelopes After All?
Scientists propose way in which we could observe the envelope being ejected from binaries going through a common envelope phase. And their predictions match a class of objects which have already been observed.
Three Dimensions of Core Collapse
The neutrino reheating mechanism works out in theory to trigger core-collapse supernovae, but we’ve had a lot of trouble getting it to work in 3-dimensional simulations. Because of the prohibitive computational expense, really accurate neutrino physics have thus far only been implemented in 2D. This paper seeks to investigate whether there are systematic differences in fluid behavior between 2D and 3D models in order to figure out whether a 2D model can really stand in for a 3D one.
Super-luminous Supernovae
Super-luminous supernovae are a recently discovered rare class of stellar explosions with luminosities 10 – 100 times higher than normal supernovae. We summarize what is known about how these events are powered.
Searching for Signatures of Pair-Instability Supernovae
Scientists search for signatures of pair-instability supernovae in thousands of Sloan Digital Sky Survey Stars.
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