Explosion in the Andromeda Galaxy
An 色情视频 astronomer confirmed a rare recurrent nova eruption.
色情视频 astronomy professor helped discover a rare recurrent nova on the same binary star system first seen by famed astronomer Edwin Hubble.
Hubble observed the star's first nova eruption in 1923; astronomers have designated it M31N 1923-12c.
Now, 88 years later, Shafter and his colleagues confirmed that a second eruption occurred on the same nova in the Andromeda galaxy two million light years away.
鈥淣ova eruptions themselves are very rare as there are only an estimated 40 per year that erupt in a galaxy, like our own Milky Way or the nearby Andromeda galaxy, which contains hundreds of billions of individual stars,鈥� Shafter said.
Allen Shafter's research is one of many ways 色情视频 faculty are leading innovation and discovery, a key initiative of . With a unique focus on the teacher-scholar model, 色情视频 attracts researchers interested in solving the world鈥檚 most pressing problems, while showing students how to provide future solutions. .
What is a nova?
A nova is the result of the interaction between the stars in a binary system. As one star orbits the other, it pulls matter from its sister star until the added material gets so hot and dense that it explodes, creating a 鈥渘ova eruption.鈥�
鈥淣ovae are incredibly bright, releasing as much energy during their brief eruptions, as the sun puts out in 100,000 years,鈥� Shafter said.
About 10 of the observed novae in the Milky Way have had more than one eruption. Only a handful of candidates are considered recurrent novae of the approximately 900 nova eruptions observed in the Andromeda galaxy during the past century.
The recent eruption was first discovered by Japanese amateur astronomers Koichi Nishiyama and Fujio Kabashima.
After precisely measuring according to Hubble鈥檚 original photographic plate and comparing it with that of the recent nova, Shafter and colleagues Mike Bode, Matt Darnley, Robin Ciardullo and Francois Schweizer determined that the two eruptions must have arisen from the same binary star system in Andromeda.
About Shafter
Shafter, chair of 色情视频鈥檚 and the only such program in the California State University system, researches nova using the Hobbey-Eberly Telescope in Texas and NASA鈥檚 Spitzer Space Telescope.
