Rare behemoth star produces antimatter and collapses in a runaway nuclear reaction that leaves nothing behind
Posted 12.02.2009 at 2:50 pm
5 Comments
Supernova Go Boom Yep, it's bigger than this explosion (artist's illustration of SN 2006gy)
NASA/CXC/M Weiss
Stars don't tend to go quietly, and the most massive of them all create a supernova explosion 50 to 100 times brighter than normal. Now astronomers have confirmed the existence of rare but huge stars that contain 200 times the mass of our sun, after spotting one unusually bright cosmic explosion in 2007.
The supernova, called SN2007bi, remained visible almost two years after its first discovery -- a very unusual bonus for astronomers. A team has since analyzed the star's signature and published their findings in the Dec. 3 issue of the journal Nature.
Turns out that the huge explosion represents a pair-instability supernova, in which a star has mostly run out of hydrogen and helium and only has a core of oxygen. Smaller stars consume that core until only iron remains, and then collapse into a Type II supernova that leaves a black hole or neutron star. Even tinier dwarf stars undergo a Type Ia supernova, which astrophysicists recently modeled in 3-D.
Related Articles
 | Unveiled: The First Full 3-D Model of a Star Going Supernova |
| Where Have all the Supernovae Gone? |
 | Air Force Seeks Better Space Technology: Are Star Wars Upon Us? |
Tags
Science, Jeremy Hsu, astronomers, astrophysicists, cosmic explosions, Space, stars, stellar explosions, supernova, supernovaeBut the behemoth had a much different fate. During the oxygen core phase, it released high-energy photons that created pairs of electrons with their antimatter cousins, known as positrons. The mutual annihilation of matter and antimatter led to a rapid collapse that set off a nuclear chain reaction in the oxygen core, and eventually consumed the entire star.
Astronomers told SPACE.com that the confirmed discovery now puts to rest previous doubts about whether such massive stars could exist. Apologies to the Imperial Death Star, but it's way out of its league.
[via SPACE.com]
5 Comments
To comment, please Login.
Popular Tags
Science
138 years of Popular Science at your fingertips.
Innovation Challenges
Popular Science+ For iPad
Each issue has been completely reimagined for your iPad. See our amazing new vision for magazines that goes far beyond the printed page
Download Our App
Stay up to date on the latest news of the future of science and technology from your iPhone or Android phone with full articles, images and offline viewing
Follow Us On Twitter
Featuring every article from the magazine and website, plus links from around the Web. Also see our PopSci DIY feed
.jpg)
February 2012: The Future of Fun
Science is reinventing play, from extreme sports to gamification to ridiculous roller coasters to the playgrounds of tomorrow, and this issue is chock full of fun. Also, on a less fun note: Did global warming destroy my hometown?
Popular on Popsci
Most Viewed
Science
- Gallery: The Best Way to Unbuild a Dam
- 3-D Laser Maps Show How Major Quakes Rend the Earth
- Doctors Grow Parkinsonian Human Brain Cells In Vitro, Shedding Light on the Genetics of the Disease
- An Oral History of Extreme Sports
- 200,000-Year-Old Patch of Seagrass Is the World's Oldest Living Organism
- Video Gallery: The Most Amazing Movies of the Minuscule World
- MIT Scientist Offers $100,000 to Anyone Who Can Prove Quantum Computing Is Impossible
- Antarctica's Frozen Lake Vostok, Isolated for 20 Million Years, Breached By Russian Drills
- To Compare Human and Monkey Brains, Humans and Monkeys Watch a Clint Eastwood Film
- The Most Amazing Science Images of the Week, January 30-February 3, 2012
Most Emailed
Science
- 3-D Laser Maps Show How Major Quakes Rend the Earth
- Doctors Grow Parkinsonian Human Brain Cells In Vitro, Shedding Light on the Genetics of the Disease
- An Oral History of Extreme Sports
- 200,000-Year-Old Patch of Seagrass Is the World's Oldest Living Organism
- Video Gallery: The Most Amazing Movies of the Minuscule World
- MIT Scientist Offers $100,000 to Anyone Who Can Prove Quantum Computing Is Impossible
- Antarctica's Frozen Lake Vostok, Isolated for 20 Million Years, Breached By Russian Drills
- To Compare Human and Monkey Brains, Humans and Monkeys Watch a Clint Eastwood Film
- The Most Amazing Science Images of the Week, January 30-February 3, 2012
- Archive Gallery: PopSci Hunts For Mythical Beasts
Most Commented
Science
- The Moon Should Be the 51st State, and Other Space Dreams From Newt Gingrich
- Russian Scientists Drilling into "Alien" Antarctic Lake Vostok Fall Silent
- 10-Year-Old Accidentally Creates New Molecule in Science Class
- Should Scientists Be Held Legally Responsible for Their Results?
- Hilarious "Theory of Everything" Paper Provokes Kerfuffle
- FYI: Do Animals Dream?
- New Climate Change Culprit: Chilean Man Stealing Glaciers to Put In Cocktails
- How D-Dalus Flies Like Nothing Else
- The Best Way to Unbuild a Dam
- How Men Can Decode Women's Menstrual Cycles
Today on PopSci.com
Copyright © 2009 Popular Science
A Bonnier Corporation Company. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.
This is amazing.
Can any one explain the antimatter theory?
We only have an artist illustration, but not the original screen? Is this top-secret or something? I hate to watch illustrations, I want the original one ._.
the air dissolved the whole star? i wonder if it was yummy.
My take on antimatter is that theoretically, for every king of matter there must be a corresponding kind of antimatter. Whether it must be in equal quantities, I don't know.
The existence of a PET scan makes use of the existence of antimatter in our bodies.
Somehow, if antimatter touches matter, they both disappear and are converted to energy.
Perhaps in reverse direction, energy treated in a certain way produces both matter and antimatter, and they continue if they go their separate ways. Does antimatter have anti-gravity? If it did, could we harness it as rocket fuel?
Was this what was going on in the big bang? If so, what force could get a whole universe's worth of energy together in one place, and then treat it in such a way that it would form matter and anti-matter?
i not sure but the basic idea is that when a high energy photon 3GeV+ comes in contact with a recoiling neucleus the energy of the photon is converted into mass energy and "pair production" takes place. that is basically involves a particle and its anti matter particle being produced through energy conversion. (in this case an electron-positron pair) that positron being anti matter comes in contact with another electron and annihilates. this prosses releases energy in the form of high energy photons ( sounds familiar?)