Related papers: Will Betelguese Explode?
A recent supernova has been reported as exceeding ``the light output of an ordinary supernova by at least two orders of magnitude''. It is noted that it falls in a minor galaxy in the Perseus Cluster. Some evidence indicating a ten times…
World-wide, several detectors currently running or nearing completion are sensitive to a core collapse supernova neutrino signal in the Galaxy. I will briefly describe the nature of the neutrino signal and then survey current and future…
A significant fraction of massive stars are moving supersonically through the interstellar medium (ISM), either due to disruption of a binary system or ejection from their parent star cluster. The interaction of their wind with the ISM…
The death of massive stars is shrouded in many mysteries. One of them is the mechanism that overturns the collapse of the degenerate iron core into an explosion, a process that determines the supernova explosion energy, properties of the…
We present the discovery of an exceptional dimming event in a cool supergiant star in the Local Volume spiral M51. The star, dubbed M51-DS1, was found as part of a Hubble Space Telescope (HST) search for failed supernovae (SNe). The…
The study of the stars that explode as supernovae used to be a forensic study, working backwards from the remnants of the star. This changed in 1987 when the first progenitor star was identified in pre-explosion images. Currently there are…
A rare class of `super-luminous' supernovae that are about ten or more times more luminous at their peaks than other types of luminous supernovae has recently been found at low to intermediate redshifts. A small subset of these events have…
The spin-down of Be stars due to angular momentum transport from star to disc has been considered. This has been prompted by empirical studies of observed optical and IR line profile studies indicating that the disc is rotating in a…
Supernova explosions are one of the most energetic--and potentially lethal--phenomena in the Universe. Scientists have speculated for decades about the possible consequences for life on Earth of a nearby supernova, but plausible candidates…
Here we present some critical discussions about the systematic uncertainty by dust extinction in the recent cosmological results of high-redshift Type Ia supernovae. First we argue that the currently available data do not robustly exclude…
Post-AGB stars evolve on a very fast track and hence not many are known. Their spectral properties make them, in principle, ideal objects to test our theories on the late phases of stellar evolution. This has, however, proven much more…
The fate of massive stars above 20M$_{\odot}$ remains uncertain. Debate persists about whether they die as supernovae (SNe), or if they collapse directly into black holes (BHs) with little or no optical outburst -- so-called ``failed…
Observing a supernova explosion shortly after it occurs can reveal important information about the physics of stellar explosions and the nature of the progenitor stars of supernovae (SNe). When a star with a well-defined edge explodes in…
We observed Betelgeuse using ALMA's extended configuration in band 7 (f~340 GHz, {\lambda}~0.88 mm), resulting in a very high angular resolution of 18 mas. Using a solid body rotation model of the 28SiO(v=2,J=8-7) line emission, we show…
Reasons for the current interest in cosmic rays above 10^19 eV are described. The latest results on the energy spectrum, arrival direction distribution and mass composition of cosmic rays are reviewed, including data that were reported…
We report 11 yr of spectroscopic monitoring of the M-type asymptotic giant branch star eta Gem, a semiregular variable and a known spectroscopic binary with a period of 8.2 yr. We combine our radial velocities with others from the…
Low-energy neutrinos are clean messengers from supernovae explosions and probably carry unique insights into the process of stellar evolution. We estimate the expected number of events considering coherent elastic scattering of neutrinos…
First results of numerical simulations are presented which compute the dynamical evolution of a neutron star with a mass slightly below the minimum stable mass by means of a new implicit (general relativistic) hydrodynamic code. We show…
SN 2006gy radiated far more energy in visual light than any other supernova so far, and potential explanations for its energy demands have implications for galactic chemical evolution and the deaths of the first stars. It remained bright…
Population III supernovae have been of growing interest of late for their potential to directly probe the properties of the first stars, particularly the most energetic events that are visible near the edge of the observable universe. But…