Missing link found between turbulence in collapsing star and hypernova, gamma-ray burst
Monday, November 30, 2015 - 13:50
in Astronomy & Space
Extremely bright supernovas, called hypernovae, have been linked to gamma-ray bursts, but theorists have struggled to explain how a collapsing massive star could produce a magnetic field a million billion times greater than that of the sun, which is necessary to blow off the outer portions of the star and accelerate charged particles to speeds needed to produce gamma rays. A new supercomputer simulation shows how this happens.