The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope continues to produce stunning images. Let’s examine a particularly pretty recent treat, revealing the aftermath of a cosmic disaster.

Image of supernova remnant

The Smoke Ring? The image evokes SF author Larry Niven's celebrated creation. (Image credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA). Acknowledgement: J. Hughes (Rutgers University))

Like so many beautiful astronomical sights, the delicate sphere in this delightful image is the remains of a cataclysmic event. About four centuries ago, a tiny white dwarf star about the same diameter as Earth, but with a mass equivalent to the Sun, swung in a tight orbit about some larger star. The white dwarf’s intense gravity tore material from its more massive companion. This stolen matter was mainly hydrogen, fuel for nuclear fusion. As it accumulated, white hot plasma thickly coated the dwarf star in an incandescent ocean until a crucial combination of heat and pressure was reached and suddenly the star’s surface became one huge detonating H-bomb!  Astronomer call these titanic explosions Type 1a supernovae

The vast expanding blast wave ripped through the nearby interstellar medium. Called SNR B0509-67.5, this supernova remnant is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a small galaxy about 160 000 light years from Earth. This bubble-shaped shroud of gas is 23 light years across and is expanding at more than 18 million km/h.


1 Comment

Dov Henis · January 27, 2015 at 15:25

Evolution Derives From Gravity- the monotheism of the universe- in Hebrew and in plain English, not in academEnglish verbiage

(Sorry but I have removed the text which was not in English- ADMIN)

Evolution Derives From Gravity- the monotheism of the universe:

The quantity of mass in the universe is constant since the universe started its last self-replication, since its last singularity, its last pre-big bang re-birth conception.

All Science Disciplines derive from, start and end, evolve and survive in the direction and manner set by the framework of gravity, the monotheism of the universe. All things, everything in the universe, derive from the gravity of the universe. Every mass format exists, like the universe itself, in one of two states: in an inert state like the material (most probably the gravitons, the elementary particles of the universe) stored in black holes, and in an energetic state, in motion therefore capable of performing work. Due to this mass-energy dualism also the quantity of energy in the universe is constant.

Since the last big-bang all mass formats undergo the same cyclic sequence like the universe itself i.e. conception/singularity, birth /big bang – evolution/survival/inflation/expansion/re-congregating in black holes – replication/repeat singularity etc., over again. In order to survive and to repeat this sequence every mass format must remain in an energetic state. And since the universe mass/energy quantity is constant there is a melee for it by all mass formats, and the unfortunate formats are swallowed and digested by the fortunate mass formats.

It’s indeed, in fact, an eat or be eaten universe…

Dov Henis (comments from 22nd century)
http://universe-life.com/

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