Source: Modified from “The Most Massive Core-Collapse Supernova Progenitors,” by R. Waldman, In Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 685; October 1, 2008 (graph); Animation by Ryan Reid
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Source: Modified from “The Most Massive Core-Collapse Supernova Progenitors,” by R. Waldman, In Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 685; October 1, 2008 (graph); Animation by Ryan Reid
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14 Comments
Add CommentVery nice, except my plugin can't seem to complete the video correctly...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisVery simplistic and doesn't even attempt to explain where all the heavier than iron elements come from. The illustration also would suggest that the larger stars die earlier, but does not attempt to explain the physics behind that theory.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe animation is good while the explanation is so limited that it is only appropriate for secondary students to have a comprehension.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNice and simplistic. Needs more explanation (as others suggest). Poor choice of colors and background making it difficult to read (blue or red on black are NO GOOD). Keep it viewer-friendly even for those color challenged viewers!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat about the heavier elements that occur naturally (all the way to Uranium, I think)? I've heard something about the pressure waves from supernovas causing some elements (or maybe just complex molecules) to form. Is that the case? If you know a good article for my Q I'd appreciate it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1. Explain . . .”new elements” I thought we knew about “all” the elements already?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this2. “Explode" or “Implode”
That’s all for now.
The earth, as well as mercury, venus and mars are mainly composed of remnants of a supernova explosion. (Seems not to be of the massive type.)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTwinkle, twinkle great big star!
Oh I wonder if you are,
(Or already in the distant past,)
Exploaded into tiny bits,
And at the very core,
Of planets soon to be, or already are.
Curious that the diagram shows the neon shell forming before the oxygen shell, yet neon is heavier (by an alpha particle) than oxygen and would presumably be formed after oxygen.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow does anything become denser? and how does that make it collapse? Methinks something if not a lot is missing!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA pending publication about disturbed fields of energy does a much better job.
I like the animation, unfortunately it does not explain what pair instability is (guess that high energy photons turn into electron-psitron pairs) and cannot keep the gravity. I find also surprising that at the same temperature and higher density the star is stable as the graphic suggest.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@top_quark: The missing physics explanation is that at sufficiently high core temperature, but lower density because heavier elements have not accumulated yet, gamma rays can produce electron-positron pairs. Temperature correlates to atomic particle velocity and photon energy. Photon pressure is also what holds stars up against self-gravity. So when you start to get significant pair production, you are removing photons, and the core pressure drops.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat starts a core collapse which leads to a runaway acceleration of nuclear burning, and the star explodes. For this type of explosion to happen, the star needs to have a low amount of elements above Helium, which means it formed from gas that had not already been processed by older generation stars.
Nicely put-together animation, but it ends on page 1. To explain this subject even briefly would require something 10 times as large.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor a quick reference, see
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernova_nucleosynthesis
"Production of the elements from iron to uranium occurs within seconds of a supernova explosion."
Also see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_nucleosynthesis
"How does anything become denser?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor one thing, as fusion of increasingly heavier elements in turn produces even heavier elements, the star's interior becomes more dense, because it is composed of elements with more nucleons (protons & neutrons) per atomic nucleus than the hydrogen it began with. There is more mass contained per space occupied.
"...how does that make it collapse?"
As I understand, it is the outward pressure of 'excess' energy emitted by atomic fusion that initially prevents the continued gravitational collapse of a stellar mass. Once fusion has processed all the elements it can (generally up to iron), the fusion process begins to halt. Without the continuous outward pressure of energy emitted by fusion, the mass quickly collapses under gravitational pressure.
More can be found in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_evolution
especially under the heading "Massive Stars".