Type Ia supernovae stem from the explosion of white dwarfs coupled with twin stars
Wednesday, August 20, 2014 - 05:30
in Astronomy & Space
Type Ia supernovae happen when a white dwarf, the "corpse" of a star similar to the Sun, absorbs material from a twin star until it reaches a critical mass—1.4 times that of the Sun—and explodes. Because of their origin, all these explosions share a very similar luminosity. This uniformity made type Ia supernovae ideal objects to measure distances in the universe, but the study of supernova 2014J suggests a scenario that would invalidate them as "standard candles".