WEBVTT - Supernovae: Best Around, Case Closed 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:04.240 Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:13.000 Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, 0:00:13.000 --> 0:00:15.800 and there's Chuck and Jerry's here lurking around like a weirdo, 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:24.960 and this is stuff you should know. That's right Interstellar dish. Yeah, absolutely, 0:00:24.960 --> 0:00:28.360 And Chuck I was like, surely we've talked about this before, 0:00:28.440 --> 0:00:30.840 and I'm sure we have, maybe in the Galaxy episode 0:00:30.920 --> 0:00:34.080 or I think we did. It was the Black Holes. Okay, yeah, 0:00:34.159 --> 0:00:36.800 that makes a lot of sense. Actually, um, but we've 0:00:36.800 --> 0:00:39.239 never done when I double checked, we've never done one 0:00:39.280 --> 0:00:42.360 on super Novay. That's a E on the end. That's 0:00:42.440 --> 0:00:48.479 plural um episode before and we're going to now. And 0:00:48.560 --> 0:00:50.640 I have to say, the reason we're going to know, 0:00:50.840 --> 0:00:53.800 I think for my money, is that we will be 0:00:54.320 --> 0:00:59.880 discussing probably the most interesting phenomenon in the universe. Are 0:00:59.880 --> 0:01:02.440 you think? So? That's that's my bad. You know, I'm 0:01:02.440 --> 0:01:04.560 not gonna try to sway you, persuade you if you 0:01:04.560 --> 0:01:08.120 feel differently, But that's just how I feel. All right. Well, 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:12.480 I mean it's interesting timing because of the the new 0:01:12.520 --> 0:01:16.679 images coming back from the James web Space telescope kind 0:01:16.680 --> 0:01:20.160 of like right now, I mean it looks like this thing, 0:01:20.920 --> 0:01:24.280 I mean, it's a it's a thousand times greater than 0:01:24.319 --> 0:01:28.960 what Hubble can see. Yeah, and like Hubble is our 0:01:29.959 --> 0:01:33.679 our gen x is superstar. Yeah, and it's nothing to 0:01:33.680 --> 0:01:36.760 sneeze at. I mean, if it's produced some pretty amazing pictures, 0:01:36.760 --> 0:01:39.800 you know, it's fine, but it's nothing compared to the 0:01:40.040 --> 0:01:43.600 James Web. And what they're saying is that this thing 0:01:43.920 --> 0:01:46.959 is potentially um going to be able to see through 0:01:46.959 --> 0:01:51.600 space dust and you know, they're gonna be doing something 0:01:51.640 --> 0:01:57.680 that we uh can often not do, which is c supernovay. Yeah, 0:01:57.720 --> 0:01:59.640 which is a big deal because you know, space dust 0:01:59.680 --> 0:02:03.320 can really the obscure supernova, which we'll talk about. But yeah, 0:02:03.360 --> 0:02:05.360 have you seen that. I'm sure you've seen that. That 0:02:05.440 --> 0:02:10.120 first picture they released, the Star Child amazing, Yeah, it is. 0:02:10.320 --> 0:02:12.919 But at the same time, it's almost like it looks 0:02:12.919 --> 0:02:15.320 like it was put together by a poorly trained graphic 0:02:15.360 --> 0:02:17.720 designer who like really overdid it, you know, tried to 0:02:17.760 --> 0:02:21.000 fit everything into one picture. But it just like really 0:02:21.080 --> 0:02:25.639 goes to show you how not so full the universe is. 0:02:25.800 --> 0:02:29.080 And yet imagine how spread out all that stuff is. 0:02:29.160 --> 0:02:33.720 The distance between those things. Oh yeah, unbelievable. Uh, and 0:02:33.840 --> 0:02:38.040 you know the core no uh no pun intended, But 0:02:38.120 --> 0:02:40.760 the core of this research comes from our old, our 0:02:40.800 --> 0:02:42.880 old website that we used to work for, how stuff 0:02:42.919 --> 0:02:47.720 Works dot com and uh one of the the most 0:02:47.760 --> 0:02:51.440 convoluted explanations of anything I've ever seen in my life. Yeah, 0:02:51.600 --> 0:02:53.960 we're gonna, we're gonna pare it down to size, we're 0:02:53.960 --> 0:02:57.160 gonna tame it. Okay, it's um And hey, listen, I 0:02:57.160 --> 0:03:00.880 don't want to pick on somebody, but it almost seemed 0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:04.240 like the goal was to see how much they could 0:03:04.280 --> 0:03:09.320 confuse somebody about supernovaea clearly explain what it what's going 0:03:09.320 --> 0:03:12.959 on there. So our goal is to wind our way 0:03:12.960 --> 0:03:17.560 through this and lean into kids science websites like I 0:03:17.600 --> 0:03:20.800 always do. Okay, Yeah, and they work big time, especially 0:03:20.880 --> 0:03:24.600 for this kind of thing, because um, to me, one 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:28.359 of the reasons I find talking about supernova so attractive 0:03:29.000 --> 0:03:33.360 is that it's really understandable when you kind of like 0:03:33.520 --> 0:03:36.880 dig into it. But when you realize, like, oh I 0:03:36.960 --> 0:03:39.880 get this stuff. You you you come to realize that, 0:03:39.920 --> 0:03:44.640 like you understand like the most superficial understanding of of 0:03:44.680 --> 0:03:47.640 what's actually going on, and it's still like generally the 0:03:47.720 --> 0:03:49.520 nuts and bolts, the principle of it, but there's so 0:03:49.640 --> 0:03:53.080 much more detail that people you know, um, dedicate their 0:03:53.200 --> 0:03:56.560 entire careers to studying these things, and we're just gonna 0:03:56.640 --> 0:03:58.480 go over it in less than an hour. How about that? 0:03:58.920 --> 0:04:02.080 Well yeah, and if you uh, I say, far less 0:04:02.080 --> 0:04:04.720 than an hour. But if you if you look at 0:04:05.320 --> 0:04:08.000 what you're trying to understand, and even if you can understand, 0:04:08.160 --> 0:04:12.120 like the tiniest concepts which you're also understanding, are the 0:04:12.160 --> 0:04:18.599 tiniest building blocks of everything. Basically, because out of supernova 0:04:18.560 --> 0:04:22.800 are born, are are heavy elements, and without heavy elements, 0:04:23.080 --> 0:04:25.680 there is no life on Earth. Yeah. So like that 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:28.360 saying that we're all made of star dust, it feels 0:04:28.360 --> 0:04:31.560 like a Sagan saying, Um, that's very true, and that 0:04:31.640 --> 0:04:35.279 star dust comes in large part from supernovae. Um. Also 0:04:35.400 --> 0:04:39.560 Steven stills it, Oh, yeah, you're right, but I think 0:04:39.600 --> 0:04:42.400 he might have been smoking dubes with Carl Sagan at 0:04:42.440 --> 0:04:45.880 the time. Dubes, Well that's what they called their words, 0:04:45.920 --> 0:04:48.680 not mine, just to enshrine our generation next nous of 0:04:48.680 --> 0:04:52.560 this whole thing. That's right. I didn't say split at least, right, 0:04:53.360 --> 0:04:56.400 that would be genets. I guess dubes would be more boomer, right, 0:04:56.480 --> 0:04:59.599 exactly so. So, but that's a I mean, that's a 0:04:59.680 --> 0:05:02.960 really accurate statement, right, everything planets are made from it, 0:05:03.040 --> 0:05:05.919 Other stars are made from it. Um, anything alive on 0:05:05.960 --> 0:05:09.240 the planet in Earth, as far as we know, uh, 0:05:09.640 --> 0:05:12.279 is made of that same stuff that gets ejected from 0:05:12.279 --> 0:05:15.240 stars during supernovae. And if you if you study this, 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:18.560 what we're talking about really is the end stage of 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:22.560 the life cycle of a particular star. But if you 0:05:22.600 --> 0:05:26.880 follow it back beyond that that endpoint and watch that 0:05:26.960 --> 0:05:28.640 star dust and like kind of track it and trace it, 0:05:28.640 --> 0:05:31.440 you'll see that it goes to onto four more stars. 0:05:31.440 --> 0:05:33.599 So really what we're looking at is a part of 0:05:33.640 --> 0:05:36.960 a cycle that very much resembles like the carbon cycle 0:05:37.040 --> 0:05:40.280 here on Earth, a closed system that is self reinforcing 0:05:40.279 --> 0:05:43.840 and self sustaining that goes over really really long periods 0:05:43.839 --> 0:05:48.000 of time. But really it just keeps regenerating itself. Yeah. 0:05:48.040 --> 0:05:50.719 And the other cool thing about this web telescope is 0:05:50.760 --> 0:05:55.520 they're seeing already seeing just baby star factories out there. Uh, 0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:59.000 it's really cool stuff. I guess before we get into 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:02.720 what is actually happening at the end life of a star, 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:06.280 we should talk a little bit probably about just sort 0:06:06.320 --> 0:06:08.479 of how rare This is like if if you don't 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:12.120 know anything about supernova you may think that, um, this 0:06:12.200 --> 0:06:14.800 kind of thing is happening all the time in the 0:06:14.839 --> 0:06:17.920 Milky Way galaxy and we may not see it because 0:06:17.920 --> 0:06:20.760 of space dust and stuff. But it is in fact 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:23.720 happening all over the place all the time, all over 0:06:24.120 --> 0:06:27.919 many many galaxies. But in the Milky Way galaxy it 0:06:28.080 --> 0:06:32.160 happens about every fifty years or so give or take. Uh. 0:06:32.200 --> 0:06:35.400 They track about, you know, to every hundred years, and 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:38.640 by track, like I said, sometimes they don't see them. 0:06:38.680 --> 0:06:41.560 And up until the mid two thousand's they thought that 0:06:41.720 --> 0:06:43.960 the last one in the Milky Way was in the 0:06:44.040 --> 0:06:47.520 sixteen hundreds. And then they realize, hey, wait a minute, 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:52.000 we've been following other things like this, this debris, this 0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:55.800 interstellar debris, and that's actually the remnants of a supernova 0:06:55.880 --> 0:06:57.640 just about a hundred and forty years old. We just 0:06:57.680 --> 0:07:01.640 didn't know that's what it was exactly until later. The 0:07:01.720 --> 0:07:04.320 one that they thought was the last one from the 0:07:04.360 --> 0:07:08.640 sixteen hundreds was described by Johann Kepler, who spotted it, 0:07:08.680 --> 0:07:11.480 and it's now called s N sixty sixteen O four 0:07:11.680 --> 0:07:14.880 supernova sixteen O four because that's when it happened um 0:07:14.960 --> 0:07:17.760 and that was discovered by Kepler because it was visible 0:07:17.840 --> 0:07:20.480 to the to the naked eye. And there have only 0:07:20.520 --> 0:07:25.240 been five recorded supernova in the last millennia that were 0:07:25.480 --> 0:07:28.600 visible to the naked eye UM one in ten oh six, 0:07:28.680 --> 0:07:32.560 one in ten fifty four, one one one in fifteen 0:07:32.600 --> 0:07:35.920 seventy two, and then Kepler's in sixteen o four. So 0:07:35.960 --> 0:07:39.680 the very ironic thing is that since we invented telescopes, 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:42.920 there hasn't been a supernova that was visible to the 0:07:43.000 --> 0:07:45.680 naked eye, which is kind of funny. Yeah, but you 0:07:45.720 --> 0:07:50.320 can't see them with uh telescope that you or I 0:07:50.360 --> 0:07:54.880 could own. UM. In fact, the high powered telescope sometimes 0:07:55.520 --> 0:07:58.560 they're so sensitive to this, you know, as you'll see 0:07:58.600 --> 0:08:02.200 the supernova um emit a super bright light as you 0:08:02.200 --> 0:08:05.680 would imagine when a star collapses and explodes upon itself. 0:08:06.160 --> 0:08:10.040 And sometimes those telescopes, in fact, they're almost always overwhelmed 0:08:10.360 --> 0:08:13.920 and not very useful for those purposes. So UH, they 0:08:13.960 --> 0:08:17.840 count on regular people in their telescopes sometimes to see 0:08:17.840 --> 0:08:21.160 these in neighboring galaxies, like that ten year old girl 0:08:21.240 --> 0:08:26.320 inven that found one two and forty million light years 0:08:26.360 --> 0:08:30.920 away uh in January. It's it's it's cool that they 0:08:30.920 --> 0:08:36.000 actually uh kind of depend on amateur astronomers to find 0:08:36.040 --> 0:08:40.800 these things to call them in to the the AI. Yeah, 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:45.880 that i AU Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams. Sounds like 0:08:46.320 --> 0:08:49.439 something Dan Ackroyd would spit out in an infomercial, right, 0:08:49.520 --> 0:08:53.199 and they only accept telegrams they that's right, get the 0:08:53.240 --> 0:08:55.560 wire to them. Are you gonna tell me to stop again? 0:08:57.720 --> 0:09:01.400 But you know, you can submit that and they will 0:09:01.440 --> 0:09:05.000 take a look and they will use their uh spectrometers 0:09:05.040 --> 0:09:08.640 to kind of see what radiation is being given off, 0:09:08.640 --> 0:09:11.199 and then they can tell a lot about what's going on. Yeah, 0:09:11.320 --> 0:09:14.240 big time. Um. And the reason that they there's a 0:09:14.280 --> 0:09:17.439 couple of reasons they rely on those backyard astronomers. One, 0:09:18.080 --> 0:09:20.600 amateur astronomers are no joke. They know what they're doing. 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:24.200 They also have plenty of very well documented star charts, 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:26.760 so they're exactly the kind of people who number one 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:28.640 are looking up at the skies in the first place. 0:09:28.920 --> 0:09:31.559 And then number two are familiar enough with what the 0:09:31.600 --> 0:09:33.480 sky is supposed to look like that they would actually 0:09:33.480 --> 0:09:36.959 notice a new star. So it actually is a thing 0:09:37.000 --> 0:09:41.120 that amateur astronomers are relied on by professional astronomers. And 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:43.640 the coolest thing about this too is, as we'll see, 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:45.840 like a supernova, when it shows up, it can it 0:09:45.880 --> 0:09:48.439 can be a new star that shines for a day, 0:09:48.480 --> 0:09:50.840 a couple of weeks, a few months, usually not much 0:09:50.880 --> 0:09:53.720 longer than that, and then it just goes away again. 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:56.680 And what's really neat about this is what you're seeing 0:09:57.640 --> 0:10:03.560 is an event that happened million years ago and finally 0:10:03.679 --> 0:10:07.440 that light that's uh, you know, five million light years 0:10:07.480 --> 0:10:11.400 away from us, that were it originated is finally reaching us. 0:10:12.040 --> 0:10:15.280 I just find that so colossally awesome, and I know 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:18.439 that applies to every bit of starlight and even sunshine. 0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:21.640 It's not like it's instantaneous. It takes you know, light 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:24.000 years to to reach us, where it has to travel 0:10:24.000 --> 0:10:26.120 across the light years to reach us. But for some reason, 0:10:26.120 --> 0:10:28.560 the idea that that that that's the basis of a 0:10:28.600 --> 0:10:32.200 supernova is really neat to me. Yeah. And in fact, 0:10:32.240 --> 0:10:36.600 the very first one on record was about two thousand 0:10:36.640 --> 0:10:41.480 years ago in China. There were astronomers there who um, 0:10:41.520 --> 0:10:43.800 all of a sudden saw a new light like you 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:47.400 would today, and they started following it and making notes 0:10:47.400 --> 0:10:50.040 and chronicling the you know what, this thing was doing 0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:52.720 there and then I think it took about eight months 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:56.959 in that case, uh, which is pretty long, so maybe 0:10:57.840 --> 0:10:59.720 I don't know, maybe they were off or something. I mean, 0:10:59.760 --> 0:11:02.040 this is US two thousand years ago. No, I mean 0:11:02.080 --> 0:11:04.480 they were the Chinese astronomers of the stage were pretty 0:11:04.520 --> 0:11:06.440 they were pretty sharp, so they would have they would 0:11:06.440 --> 0:11:10.240 have probably been pretty accurate. Well, at any rate, it disappeared, 0:11:10.760 --> 0:11:14.000 and they quite didn't quite understand like what was going 0:11:14.080 --> 0:11:16.240 right at the time, right, but they did write it 0:11:16.280 --> 0:11:18.480 down in a book a couple of centuries later called 0:11:18.559 --> 0:11:21.840 them the Book of the Later han As in the 0:11:21.880 --> 0:11:25.079 Han dynasty. And I guess at some point somebody came 0:11:25.120 --> 0:11:27.680 across this and realized that what they were describing was 0:11:28.240 --> 0:11:32.000 a supernova. And what's even more mind blowing about it 0:11:32.040 --> 0:11:36.000 is we've reached the point where, using things like spectrographs 0:11:36.040 --> 0:11:41.439 and and other um like incredibly sensitive telescopes, we can 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:44.040 um look at the remnants and see what they're made of, 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:47.160 how hot they are, how fast they're traveling, and basically 0:11:47.200 --> 0:11:52.280 reverse engineer their origin to determine how old something is. 0:11:52.559 --> 0:11:56.360 And they've actually found that supernova supernova six that was 0:11:56.400 --> 0:12:01.000 originally described in the by the Han astronomers. Yeah, and 0:12:01.120 --> 0:12:03.640 we'll get to why it's useful to chart this stuff anyway, 0:12:03.640 --> 0:12:06.400 because it's not I mean, you might think, you know, 0:12:06.440 --> 0:12:09.280 it's a dead or dying and dead star like who cares. 0:12:10.080 --> 0:12:12.280 But it can be very useful as far as mapping 0:12:12.360 --> 0:12:17.200 the universe and uh, finding out what how things behave 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:21.280 in neighboring galaxies. And it's all super useful. And of 0:12:21.320 --> 0:12:24.240 course we've already talked about the elemental factor, which is 0:12:24.320 --> 0:12:29.040 why we're here. That's right, it's not us, right exactly. Um, 0:12:29.080 --> 0:12:31.880 and I think the last one that was visible not 0:12:31.960 --> 0:12:33.959 to the naked I think you had to use binoculars 0:12:34.240 --> 0:12:39.760 was u S. And um, that one was outside of 0:12:39.760 --> 0:12:43.240 our galaxy. It was technically it came from the Large 0:12:43.320 --> 0:12:47.080 Magillianic Cloud, which is a dwarf satellite galaxy to the 0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:50.040 Milky Way. So again it wasn't it wasn't one of 0:12:50.080 --> 0:12:52.800 those fifty that happened every year in the Milky Way. 0:12:52.800 --> 0:12:54.520 It was outside of it, but you could kind of 0:12:54.520 --> 0:12:56.760 see it. And it was a big deal because by 0:12:56.840 --> 0:12:59.720 about that time, we were starting to get just enough 0:12:59.760 --> 0:13:02.000 at it's to like really start to make hay out 0:13:02.080 --> 0:13:04.200 of the data that we were getting from it, so 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:07.120 it was pretty cool. But wasn't that one a two banger? 0:13:07.240 --> 0:13:10.400 Didn't that one rear? It said again in um so 0:13:10.600 --> 0:13:12.760 what they figured out and this will make more sense 0:13:12.800 --> 0:13:16.199 once we explain with how like an actual supernova works. 0:13:16.679 --> 0:13:22.440 But the the um initial, the secondary explosion, like you said, 0:13:22.480 --> 0:13:26.800 the double banger, I think that's actually the technical term. 0:13:26.960 --> 0:13:30.160 The second explosion caught up with the material from the 0:13:30.200 --> 0:13:34.080 first explosion and interacted released a ton of energy and 0:13:34.160 --> 0:13:37.200 it actually brightened. So yeah, just from tracking the stuff, 0:13:37.240 --> 0:13:39.160 I think they were like, we didn't know that could 0:13:39.160 --> 0:13:43.480 do that, and just from watching s they learned something new. Yeah, 0:13:43.600 --> 0:13:46.640 twenty four years later, which is really interesting. Yeah, exactly 0:13:47.440 --> 0:13:50.600 should we take a break? Uh? Yeah, I think so. 0:13:51.200 --> 0:13:54.920 All right, you seem hesitant, Well, I do want to 0:13:54.920 --> 0:13:56.800 throw him one more thing. Since we're talking about these 0:13:56.840 --> 0:13:58.440 things and seeing him with the naked eye. One of 0:13:58.440 --> 0:14:00.319 the reasons why you can see him with the naked 0:14:00.320 --> 0:14:03.120 eyes because these things are so bright. Some of them 0:14:03.120 --> 0:14:07.360 outshine entire galaxies for the time that they're shining, and 0:14:07.400 --> 0:14:09.840 they they'd be brighter than the full moon here on 0:14:09.880 --> 0:14:12.160 Earth and so bright that you could actually see them 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:17.040 during full daylight too, So that's pretty bright. That's quite bright. Okay, 0:14:17.040 --> 0:14:19.840 now I'm ready, Chuck, all right, we're gonna take a break. 0:14:19.920 --> 0:14:22.600 We're gonna come back. We're gonna talk about the types 0:14:22.680 --> 0:14:26.800 of two types of supernova right after this and try 0:14:26.800 --> 0:15:03.000 and make some sense out all of this stuff. Okay, 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:07.000 So if you want to break down the types of supernova, 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:09.760 you don't have to work very hard because there are 0:15:09.800 --> 0:15:12.800 two types, uh, and then there are some sub types 0:15:12.840 --> 0:15:17.360 will get into. But these were first classified by an 0:15:17.360 --> 0:15:22.760 astronomy name Rudolph Minkowski. And like we said, they use 0:15:23.240 --> 0:15:26.680 spectrographs to get a good picture of what is going 0:15:26.760 --> 0:15:30.080 on inside of a burning star because they can look 0:15:30.120 --> 0:15:34.560 at their their color lines, their absorption lines. And if 0:15:34.560 --> 0:15:37.600 we start at the beginning, we have type one supernova 0:15:37.840 --> 0:15:42.120 that have absorption lines that indicate that they don't have hydrogen, 0:15:42.920 --> 0:15:46.720 and they are super super bright, but for a very 0:15:46.960 --> 0:15:49.880 short amount of time Type one, right, and then type 0:15:49.880 --> 0:15:54.680 two do have hydrogen full stop. That's right. But then 0:15:54.720 --> 0:15:58.040 they started this is m Minkowski was working in the forties, 0:15:58.080 --> 0:16:00.520 like you said. So as time went by and we 0:16:00.600 --> 0:16:04.640 got better and better at observing the universe, by the eighties. 0:16:04.680 --> 0:16:07.480 They're like, we could subdivide these even further. So you've 0:16:07.520 --> 0:16:10.040 got the type one A, Type one B, Type one C, 0:16:10.360 --> 0:16:13.280 and then type two and Type one A is totally 0:16:13.360 --> 0:16:15.800 its own animal we'll talk about in a second. But 0:16:15.960 --> 0:16:19.880 Type one B, one C and Type two they generally 0:16:20.000 --> 0:16:23.800 undergo the same colossal kind of explosion. But the big 0:16:23.800 --> 0:16:27.400 differences they have like different kinds of UM elements in 0:16:27.440 --> 0:16:30.520 them or they don't UM. That's really the only different 0:16:30.720 --> 0:16:33.080 difference that I can see, and it really doesn't make 0:16:33.240 --> 0:16:36.120 much difference for what we're going to talk about, right. 0:16:36.520 --> 0:16:38.200 Uh So, the one I was mentioning when I said 0:16:38.200 --> 0:16:40.880 type one are very bright for very short amount of time, 0:16:40.920 --> 0:16:46.640 it's actually one A more specifically, and they happen basically 0:16:46.680 --> 0:16:51.040 when a white dwarf star orbits a bigger star, it's 0:16:51.080 --> 0:16:54.200 got to be orbiting another star, because what it's gonna 0:16:54.240 --> 0:16:58.840 do is suck matter off of that big star until 0:16:58.880 --> 0:17:03.600 it gets to basically boom size exactly. And they actually 0:17:03.720 --> 0:17:07.640 have figured out, well I should say Dr Chandra scar 0:17:07.880 --> 0:17:12.199 figured it out, um the the exact amount and moment 0:17:12.680 --> 0:17:16.880 where the mass and the matter that it sucked off 0:17:16.920 --> 0:17:20.280 of the other star reaches that boom level, and it's 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:23.400 called the Chandra Scar limit, and it equals basically one 0:17:23.400 --> 0:17:26.439 point four solar masses. And it will probably surprise no 0:17:26.440 --> 0:17:28.639 one that a solar mass is a mass equal to 0:17:28.680 --> 0:17:31.520 our Sun, and a white dwarf might start out as 0:17:31.680 --> 0:17:34.200 less than that. But once it sucks enough matter off 0:17:34.240 --> 0:17:37.440 of its twin star in that binary system, it will 0:17:37.520 --> 0:17:40.920 hit that limit, and all of a sudden, a thermonuclear 0:17:40.960 --> 0:17:44.119 reaction happens, a chain reaction exactly like the kind that 0:17:44.160 --> 0:17:48.720 happens in a thermonuclear bomb um and that runaway chain 0:17:48.760 --> 0:17:52.440 reaction actually blows the star to smithereens as you assume 0:17:52.480 --> 0:17:56.119 Indy Sam would put it. Uh, that's right, And you know, 0:17:56.200 --> 0:17:57.920 let me jump back a set because I think it's 0:17:58.080 --> 0:18:01.000 helps to understand kind of what's going on at the 0:18:01.040 --> 0:18:04.560 core of these stars anyway. Um, if you have a 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:08.760 massive star, it is burning just huge, huge amounts of 0:18:08.800 --> 0:18:12.040 that nuclear fuel at the core, and that produces a 0:18:12.240 --> 0:18:15.000 ton of energy and obviously it is going to be 0:18:15.040 --> 0:18:17.320 really really hot. U. The same kind of thing like 0:18:17.320 --> 0:18:20.920 when we talked about our nuclear fusion uh for nuclear 0:18:20.920 --> 0:18:22.600 power and stuff like that, The same kind of thing 0:18:22.680 --> 0:18:26.280 is going on. But that's gonna generate a ton of pressure, 0:18:27.000 --> 0:18:30.119 and a star is basically a balancing act. You have 0:18:30.200 --> 0:18:32.919 two forces that are kind of keeping one another in 0:18:33.000 --> 0:18:37.200 check because the star always has this gravity that's trying 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:41.160 to squeeze it down to the smallest, you know, possible size. 0:18:41.760 --> 0:18:44.720 But then you have this nuclear reaction going on, creating 0:18:45.000 --> 0:18:48.240 all this pressure going out and it's that outward push 0:18:48.680 --> 0:18:52.080 kind of battling against the inward squeeze of gravity that 0:18:52.280 --> 0:18:55.160 keeps a star from that keeps this from happening all 0:18:55.200 --> 0:18:58.080 the time. Uh. And when it finally does run out 0:18:58.080 --> 0:18:59.880 of that fuel, which we'll talk about kind of how 0:18:59.880 --> 0:19:02.600 that happens, it's gonna cool off, and that causes that 0:19:02.640 --> 0:19:05.720 pressure to drop, gravity winds, and then you've got your 0:19:05.960 --> 0:19:08.960 big bang, not the big bang, but a big bang, 0:19:09.280 --> 0:19:12.560 right And that's that's the type two supernova that you 0:19:12.720 --> 0:19:16.080 talked about. But both stars type one A and type 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:20.120 two they will they they burn um hydrogen and turn 0:19:20.119 --> 0:19:23.119 it into healing. The same process goes. It's just what 0:19:23.320 --> 0:19:25.920 happens after they run out of fuel is the big 0:19:25.960 --> 0:19:29.080 difference between them, right? Well, yeah, but is the running 0:19:29.119 --> 0:19:32.240 out of fuel basically is it working its way through 0:19:32.280 --> 0:19:35.879 the elemental chart, right, creating all these different elements until 0:19:35.880 --> 0:19:38.640 it gets to iron and nickel. Yeah, So so let's 0:19:38.680 --> 0:19:42.400 talk about that stars burn hydrogen. They as they burn hydrogen, 0:19:42.400 --> 0:19:46.600 it fuses into helium. Heliums have heavier, so it actually 0:19:46.640 --> 0:19:49.359 starts to settle more towards the core because of that 0:19:49.760 --> 0:19:53.200 um that gravity, because gravity can exert a stronger force 0:19:53.200 --> 0:19:56.080 and something with more mass, and helium has more mass 0:19:56.119 --> 0:19:58.879 than than hydrogen, So the hydrogen kind of stays in 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:01.440 the outer layers of the star and the core is 0:20:01.480 --> 0:20:04.600 made up of helium. Well, as that hydrogen starts to 0:20:04.640 --> 0:20:07.879 wear out, the core starts burning off the helium, like 0:20:08.040 --> 0:20:11.520 using that to keep itself going as fuel, and then 0:20:11.560 --> 0:20:14.920 eventually it starts fusing it into heavier and heavier elements 0:20:14.960 --> 0:20:17.920 like you were saying. And it's all fine, it's all good. 0:20:17.960 --> 0:20:20.080 I mean, it's getting a little panicky. The stars like 0:20:20.160 --> 0:20:24.080 got that cartoon sweat jumping off its forehead. But it's 0:20:24.119 --> 0:20:27.800 still producing more energy than it's using, so it can 0:20:27.920 --> 0:20:31.320 keep that that gravity at bay, although it's getting harder 0:20:31.320 --> 0:20:34.080 and harder. Right, And then, like you said, once it 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:38.080 starts producing iron, it reaches the point where there's a 0:20:38.160 --> 0:20:41.280 net energy loss because it takes more energy to combine 0:20:41.760 --> 0:20:46.399 uh molecules into iron than the energy that's released from 0:20:46.480 --> 0:20:50.560 that process. And that, my friend, is where the star 0:20:50.840 --> 0:20:53.359 starts to go boom. Yeah. And here's the part I 0:20:53.400 --> 0:20:56.960 don't quite get. Maybe you can help me, is I 0:20:57.040 --> 0:20:59.600 know that's how a type two works. But does a 0:20:59.680 --> 0:21:03.399 Type one A do the same thing? But just by 0:21:03.760 --> 0:21:09.480 sucking in matter from its neighbor? No, no, no, Type 0:21:09.520 --> 0:21:12.679 one A blows up like a nuclear bomb. Okay, I 0:21:12.720 --> 0:21:15.159 got you. It just sets off that chain reaction and 0:21:15.240 --> 0:21:18.280 it just blows itself up, all right. The other way 0:21:18.280 --> 0:21:20.720 that a Type one A can go out is if 0:21:20.760 --> 0:21:23.080 it has so it's got to reach that Chandra Scar 0:21:23.240 --> 0:21:25.520 limit of one point four solar masses, and then that 0:21:25.600 --> 0:21:30.959 chain reaction happens. If that star never reaches that limit, um, 0:21:31.000 --> 0:21:33.240 but it runs out of fuel, it'll go from a 0:21:33.240 --> 0:21:36.200 white dwarf to a black dwarf. And a black dwarf 0:21:36.320 --> 0:21:38.840 is basically like a star that's a campfire that you 0:21:38.880 --> 0:21:42.520 stopped adding would too, and it eventually just gets dimmer 0:21:42.520 --> 0:21:44.720 and dimmer, and then it finally goes out on its own. 0:21:45.000 --> 0:21:48.399 That's basically a black dwarf. Okay, all right, well that 0:21:48.440 --> 0:21:53.080 makes that makes sense then, because it's basically uh fusing 0:21:54.000 --> 0:21:57.840 all all of the carbon and everything like at that core, 0:21:58.440 --> 0:22:00.840 and it just it can't handle that kind of load. 0:22:01.720 --> 0:22:06.320 The type two you mean one, uh uh no, I 0:22:06.320 --> 0:22:08.159 think it just runs out of fuel and becomes a 0:22:08.200 --> 0:22:12.960 black dwarf. Or if it has enough fuel Okay, yeah, 0:22:13.040 --> 0:22:16.000 it has it has enough fuel that Yes, I don't 0:22:16.000 --> 0:22:18.720 know if it's carbon or if it's hydrogen or whatever, 0:22:18.800 --> 0:22:22.639 but it has enough of whatever it needs to um 0:22:22.640 --> 0:22:26.199 set off that runaway thermonuclear chain reaction and blow itself up. 0:22:26.480 --> 0:22:29.280 I think it's carbon, Okay, so yeah, and that would 0:22:29.280 --> 0:22:31.639 make sense. Um. But it so it turns into a 0:22:31.640 --> 0:22:35.479 thermonuclear carbon bomb, a star sized version. That's what happens 0:22:35.480 --> 0:22:39.120 with the type one A the Type two. Then this 0:22:39.200 --> 0:22:41.760 is the whole reason it's different, Chuck, is the Type 0:22:41.800 --> 0:22:45.280 two star starts out as much larger, much more massive 0:22:45.640 --> 0:22:51.720 than this type UM one a star right X the sun, Yes, exactly, 0:22:52.119 --> 0:22:54.800 and so it has to be at least that that 0:22:54.920 --> 0:22:57.280 size or else it's not gonna work. It'll probably turn 0:22:57.359 --> 0:23:01.359 into um the type one a kind of super ova UM. 0:23:01.440 --> 0:23:04.560 So because it's eight times the size or the mass 0:23:04.560 --> 0:23:09.040 of the Sun. It has a really strong gravitational force 0:23:09.200 --> 0:23:12.200 working on it. And then that is what really plays 0:23:12.280 --> 0:23:15.879 that major role in a type two supernova, that gravity 0:23:16.280 --> 0:23:19.400 sucking everything in towards the core, and then the denser 0:23:19.680 --> 0:23:22.040 and more massive the core is because more stuff is 0:23:22.040 --> 0:23:24.440 getting sucked into it and more and more iron is 0:23:24.480 --> 0:23:28.640 being put together. That that is what makes it implode 0:23:29.200 --> 0:23:33.680 with such force that it actually explodes with I would 0:23:33.680 --> 0:23:37.000 guess an equal amount of force. Yeah, Like it collapses 0:23:37.000 --> 0:23:39.720 in on itself and once it gets to the center, 0:23:40.400 --> 0:23:43.560