Recent content by Arch2008

The trick is to create an industry to do this as you go. We already know how to launch spacecraft to NEO. Build a small fleet of more efficient Shuttle 2.0 craft and pay for the trips by carrying commercial satellites to orbit. The first missions also carry the modules of a modest space...

One of the unique properties of iron is that it takes more energy to fuse iron into another element than is released by the fusion process. So when the core of a massive star fuses to iron the core stops radiating energy. The outer layers of the star collapse at something like a quarter of the...

So Drakkith, the Wiki is right when you quote it, but not for me. Here's what I said from NASA: http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l1/sn_overview.html

Nope, it’s iron core first, then neutron core, then kaboom. “Within a massive, evolved star (a) the onion-layered shells of elements undergo fusion, forming an iron core (b) that reaches Chandrasekhar-mass and starts to collapse. The inner part of the core is compressed into neutrons (c)...

I don't seem to be able to edit my earlier post. Anyway, it's Nickel 56 decays to Cobalt 56 and then to Iron 56 (then kaboom).

Huge stars (with one exception) both collapse and explode. The cores of these stars have the greatest pressure and temperature. Hydrogen is fused into helium, carbon, oxygen and other elements. When the core fuses into a nickel isotope (IIRC nickel 59), the nickel quickly decays into iron...

http://www.deepfly.org/TheNeighborhood/SysArch.html

I have read that some of the Myra’s may be shaped like an egg, so I’m not too sure how the radial velocity may work out, but the outer layers do escape. As I understand it, the ejecta in the jets of a star collapsing into say, a black hole, may travel at close to the speed of light. Then, the...

Fewmet a star is a contest between gravity crushing the star together and nuclear energy trying to blow it apart. Huge stars grow so large that at their surface the gravity is essentially canceled out by the outward pressure. So the surface gravity is negligible and the star continually loses...

IIRC, the first exoplanets ever discovered were found obiting the pulsar remnant of a supernova.

Well you have several features apparent. You have two jets, one red-shifted (pointed away from us) and one blue-shifted, where the ejecta is traveling towards us. The red blob at the left bottom has a visible dark break which is normally cooler dust that blocks light. Both of the red blobs could...

Also, a Gamma Ray Burst is the most powerful explosion. A giant star collapses into a black hole converting the mass of the Sun into energy in one second.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_optical_interferometry Don’t forget interferometry. An array of large telescopes receiving photons that are then combined using computers can mimic the effect of an enormous telescope. Such an array orbiting the Sun would be possible, although the...

This may be a better explanation of the matter/anti-matter imbalance: http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/2011/03/30/rare-particle-decays-could-indicate-presence-of-new-physics/

Right after the Big Bang, the tiny universe began inflating. Dark energy causes the space between galaxies to continue to inflate. When the light left those galaxies it traveled through 13.5 billion light years of space to get here, because the original space in between was expanding during...