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News Stories relating to "supernova"

When Stars Explode

Wednesday, December 7, 2011
When stars explode they become brilliant supernova for a short time, then they may undergo a sudden gravitational collapse into a neutron star or black hole, Astronomers are trying to catch glimpses of this happening, in case it happens to us...
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What Happens When a Star Explodes

Monday, April 18, 2011
Using two of its new telescopes --one on the ground and one in space-- NASA have seen one of the most puzzling cosmic blasts ever observed, which seems to be the destruction of a massive star. Astronomers say they have never seen anything this bright, long-lasting and variable before. Usually, gamma-ray bursts mark the destruction of a massive...
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Time for Beetlejuice to Explode

Sunday, March 13, 2011
It's about to happen and it may even explain 2012: Betelgeuse (known as "Beetlejuice") may be about to explode. When it does, it will produce a...
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When Beetlejuice Explodes

Monday, January 24, 2011
Over the years, people have speculated that the sun has a twin (NOTE: Subscribers can still listen to this show). The red giant star Betelgeuse ("Beetlejuice") is predicted to explode (become a super...
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When Stars Explode

Thursday, December 24, 2009

New research suggests studying the shape of the aftermath of supernovas (exploding stars) may allow astronomers to figure out what caused them (before the same thing happens to our sun?)

A new study of images from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory on supernova remnants (the debris left over from these explosions) shows that the symmetry...

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Death Star on the Way?

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Australian astronomers are keeping an eye on an exploding star they call WR104 that could end all life on earth. Before you say it couldn't happen, note that a smaller version of this has happened here before.

This star is actually TWO stars and it's getting ready to explode at any time. When a binary start like this one collapses into a...

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Why the New World was So Empty

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

when the Europeans arrived - Debris from an exploding star (a supernova) wiped out mostof the large animals (including humans) living in North America around 13,000 years ago. This is one reason why the continent was so empty, despite being so verdant, when the Europeans arrived. If this hadn't happened, they would have had to...

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Death Star

Friday, March 14, 2008

There's a binary solar system, consisting of two suns, out there, rotating and twisting through space. If it comes near us, it may shoot out a beam of gamma rays that could eliminate all life on this planet in an instant.

The solar system was first spotted 8 years ago by Australian astronomers. One of the suns is a highly unstable star...

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Supernova Soon

Monday, September 17, 2007

Astronomers have spotted a star that is about to explode?a supernova. Could this ever happen to OUR sun?

In BBC News, Roland Pease reports that astronomers saw the star "RS Ophiuchi? flare up around 6 months ago, suddenly becoming a thousand times brighter than normal. This could mean that, somewhere in the universe, a world like ours is...

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Supernova Wipeout

Wednesday, May 29, 2002

While doing research for a term paper, Karin Sandstrom, a student at Harvard University, discovered a star in our own backyard that is on the brink of exploding in a supernova. It?s so close that if it were to blow up before moving away from us, it could wipe out life on Earth.

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Supernova Ended Life on Earth

Thursday, January 24, 2002

An exploding star may have destroyed part of Earth?s protective ozone layer two million years ago, killing off some forms of ancient marine life. Narciso Benitez, of Johns Hopkins University, says the ?missing smoking gun? of a mass extinction that occurred far in the past was the revelation that a stellar cluster with many large, short-lived...

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