Subaru telescope reveals 3D structure of supernovae
Friday, August 3, 2012 - 08:01
in Astronomy & Space
A research group led by Dr. Masaomi Tanaka (National Astronomical Observatory of Japan), Dr. Koji Kawabata (Hiroshima University), Dr. Takashi Hattori (National Astronomical Observatory of Japan), and Dr. Keiichi Maeda (University of Tokyo, Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe) used the Faint Object Camera and Spectrograph (FOCAS) on the Subaru Telescope to conduct observations that revealed a clumpy 3D structure of supernovae (Figure 1). This finding supports a clumpy 3D scenario of supernovae explosions rather than the widely accepted bipolar explosion scenario. It advances our understanding of how supernovae explode, a process that has been a persistent mystery.