Type II Supernovae, like the one above, happen when a star runs out of internal fuel and collapses on itself, thanks to gravity. NASA’s research team, lead by astrophysics professor Peter Garnavich, have reconstructed this event into footage to reveal the bright shockwave that occurred in the early part of the supernova event of a massive star 500-times the size of our sun located 1.2 billion light years away. Continue reading for another video and more information.
“A new study using observations from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope reveals the first clear-cut evidence that the expanding debris of exploded stars produces some of the fastest-moving matter in the universe. This discovery is a major step toward meeting one of Fermi’s primary mission goals. Cosmic rays are subatomic particles that move through space at nearly the speed of light. About 90 percent of them are protons, with the remainder consisting of electrons and atomic nuclei. In their journey across the galaxy, the electrically charged particles become deflected by magnetic fields. This scrambles their paths and makes it impossible to trace their origins directly,” said researchers at NASA’s Goddard center.
