supernova | Common News Update

Jan42021 by adminNo Comments

Watch: Colin Firth, Stanley Tucci cope with dementia in ‘Supernova’ trailer

Entertainment

Jan. 4 (UPI) -- Bleeker Street released a trailer Monday for the new film Supernova. Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci star. The trailer shows partners Sam (Firth) and Tusker (Tucci) drive an RV on one last road trip. The trailer reveals that it is their last trip together because Tusker has early onset dementia. Advertisement Supernova promises good humor on the road as the couple struggle to fit both their bodies on a small bed. However, the film also promises to deal with the severity of Tusker's condition. Tusker displays difficulty reading, buttoning his shirt and remembering things. He even suggests setting Sam free of the burden of taking care of him as his condition worsens, but Sam commits to seeing their relationship through, for better or worse. Firth won an Academy Award for his r...

Aug182020 by adminNo Comments

Powerful supernova could explain extinctions at the end of the Devonian period

Science

Aug. 18 (UPI) -- New research suggests harmful cosmic rays from a nearby supernova might have caused the extinction events that form the boundary between the Devonian-Carboniferous periods. Around 360 million years ago, a lengthy period of biodiversity declines culminated in a series of extinction events that saw 19 percent of all families and 50 percent of all genera disappear. Advertisement Scientists have previously unearthed a diversity of Late Devonian plant spores that show evidence of being burnt by ultraviolet light, signs of a prolonged ozone-depletion event. "Earth-based catastrophes such as large-scale volcanism and global warming can destroy the ozone layer, too, but evidence for those is inconclusive for the time interval in question," lead researcher Brian Fields said in a n...

Jun292020 by adminNo Comments

Betelgeuse: Nearby ‘supernova’ star’s dimming explained

Science

Astronomers say big cool patches on a "supergiant" star close to Earth were behind its surprise dimming last year.Red giant stars like Betelgeuse frequently undergo changes in brightness, but the drop to 40% of its normal value between October 2019 and April 2020 surprised astronomers.Researchers now say this was caused by gigantic cool areas similar to the sunspots seen on our own parent star.There had been speculation that Betelgeuse was about to go supernova.But the star instead began to recover and by May 2020 it was back at its original brightness.Betelgeuse, which is about 500 light-years from Earth, is reaching the end of its life. But it's not known precisely when it will explode; it could take as long as hundreds of thou...

Apr142020 by adminNo Comments

Most powerful supernova in the universe discovered

Technology

An international team of astronomers has discovered a supernova which is at least twice as bright and energetic, and they believe much more massive, than any other ever spotted in the universe.Led by the University of Birmingham, the team believe the super-supernova, officially named SN2016aps, could be an example of something called a "pulsational pair-instability" supernova produced after two massive stars merged. This extremely rare event has previously been only theoretical, and no astronomical observations had been made which supported its existence until the researchers published their findings in the journal Nature Astronomy. ...

Nov192019 by adminNo Comments

Supernova 1987A: ‘Blob’ hides long-sought remnant from star blast

Science

Scientists believe they've finally tracked down the dead remnant from Supernova 1987A - one of their favourite star explosions.Astronomers knew the object must exist but had always struggled to identify its location because of a shroud of obscuring dust.Now, a UK-led team thinks the remnant's hiding place can be pinpointed from the way it's been heating up that dust.The researchers refer to the area of interest as "the blob"."It's so much hotter than its surroundings, the blob needs some explanation. It really stands out from its neighbouring dust clumps," Prof Haley Gomez from Cardiff University told BBC News."We think it's being heated by the hot neutron star created in the supernova."When telescopes first spotted the explosion...