Word: woosley
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Some astronomers are in less of a hurry, figuring that the best is yet to come. Says Woosley: "Once the photosphere ((the supernova's luminous surface layer)) is gone, that's when it gets interesting." When that shell thins out, months or years from now, astronomers will be able to look inside and "see" the newly born, rapidly spinning neutron star, but with a radio telescope rather than the optical kind...
...says Astronomer Stan Woosley of the University of California at Santa Cruz, "everyone with anything to look with is looking at it." Every optical telescope in the Southern Hemisphere is trained on 1987A; a newly launched Japanese satellite is scanning it for X rays emitted by the supernova's hot gases; the Solar Max satellite is looking for the gamma rays characteristic of very energetic explosions; and another spacecraft, the International Ultraviolet Explorer, has already made observations of the explosion's ultraviolet radiation. These indicate that the star's atmosphere, which astronomers have determined is exploding outward at a speed...
...star, began spewing out over a vast region of space, where they will form clouds of gas and dust that can coalesce into new stars and planets. Indeed, most of the elements abundant on earth today, except hydrogen, were cooked up in some star that became a supernova. Says Woosley: "The calcium in our bones, the iron in hemoglobin and the oxygen we all breathe came from explosions like this...
...chance that they might finally be able to pinpoint a specific progenitor star, which could finally confirm or recast their theories about how supernovas explode, has astronomers beside themselves with excitement. "It's like Christmas," says Woosley. "We've been waiting for this for 383 years." Agrees Kirshner: "Everyone in the field has been calling each other up, partly for scientific reasons and partly for sheer pleasure. It's like when someone has a baby -- it's a great event, and you just want to talk...
...gathering of more than 100 astronomers and astrophysicists at the University of California at Santa Cruz, most of the experts agreed that the starbursts, at least those emitting X rays, are distant thermonuclear explosions. In effect, nature is setting off its own H-bombs. University of California Astrophysicist Stanford Woosley, the conference chairman, said: "It is as if an object 100,000 times brighter than the sun were there one second and gone the next...