I’m kidding of course.

This is a beautiful image of a truly impressive event, and a great article. Thank you.

Oops. You’re exactly right. Thanks for the correction. I realized it myself some time afterward… I multiplied where I should have divided. (Always use dimensional analysis!)

Light speed is 1,079,252,848.8 km/hr
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light

600,000 km/hr is 1800 times slower than light speed.

WJM, what is a “shock wave”? It’s the propogation of the interface between high velocity and slower particles. As the shock wave progresses through the material and reaches thinner and thinner regions of space, the wave dissipates. The momentum and energy transfer slows the faster particles and speeds up the slower particles. Some of the faster (higher energy) particles keep going because they don’t hit local dust, and they spread further and further apart as they travel away from the source. The “wave” dissipates because there’s not a local enough collection of interference. But collisions continue to happen until every particle has one (or more) and all the energy is dissipated.

Paragraph 5: … These shocks, driven by debris moving at 600,000 kilometres per hour, heat the gas to millions of degrees. …

That’s over 7000 times the speed of light! Supernovae are warp field generators!

The HST team have done a fine job (yet again).

Plus, what a wonderfully impassioned description of the supernova event. Thanks, Phil for another fine article.

Do you happen to know what the different colours in the picture represent (i.e. which filters were in place for the image and what colour was assigned to what wavelength in the picture we see)?

How do shock waves propagate through what we refer to as ‘normal’ atmospheric pressure? True, there are a LOT of gas molecules per cubic centimeter, but if all of the molecules were condensed into a liquid, you would have a cubic centimeter of high vacuum, with a very thin smear of mostly Nitrogen molecules on the bottom. The point is, no matter how dense, or thin the gas, it’s mostly empty space, with a few dots of matter scattered about.

Looking at Earth atmosphere microscopically, there should be no way for a shock wave (sound) to propagate, since it’s mostly vacuum.

One patch of awkward wording:

The gas that was once the core of a sun screamed out at a fraction of light, but something was in the way–

I think the word “speed” is missing. Something about the concept of light speed instead of luminosity. I get it from context, but the wording is awkward.

YinYang0564 said:
> Two: with images and data like this, how can the powers that be rationalize shutting down Hubble?

There are more issues at stake than just the ability to take the pictures. There’s the overall functionality of the Hubble, the final fate of Hubble when it shuts off for good, and the safety concerns for a servicing mission. Fortunately, a servicing mission is currently planned.

CafeenMan, you are right on. As it appears in the sky, compared to how the Moon appears in the sky.

Selina Morse, I see a dragon. Head to the right, wings up flying, tail to the left.

WJM, the medium is the material itself. The shock wave is matter hitting matter in front of it. As high velocity gas and dust overruns the slower gas and dust, the impacts create a shock wave through the dust and gas.

One of my favorites.

I know people who claim to have seen it by holding an OIII filter up to their naked eye under a very dark sky, but I’ve never done it myself.

I’m not much into astronomy and such, but I’m fairly certain the energy from such shock waves would dissipate following the inverse square law.

Though the energy does continue on forever, it gets distributed evenly over an ever increasing area. By the time it reaches us, it is hard to even detect, let alone be hazard.

After all, the universe is a really big place.

Tilt your head 33 degrees to the right, cover your left eye and peel an onion until your right eye starts to water slightly. Then it will become clear – the picture will shine with clarity and you will see that what Hubble has captured is nothing more than the image of… an angel.

If anyone needs me some nice young men in white coats are just coming up the path now…..

Did I get it or am I missing something?

Question for Phil: I never understood what the difference was between gravitational collapse that results in a swartzchild black hole, and the phenomenon described here… If there’s enough gravitation to overcome subnuclear pressures (the ones that keep neutron stars from being black holes), how can it just “throw off” these massive quantities of matter, when it seems like it should all collapse down into a (similarly exciting, but much less visually stunning) black hole.

In a less inquisitive note, who needs religion when there is so much beauty in the universe? Stunning objects like this should make us realize how supremely fortunate we are to exist in a fragment of time in the Universe’s history, where a species of primate, is able to reason, build tools to discern the universe around, and view the spectacle that is nature.

The Cosmic coffin with Death Ray idea is a great one, I can hardly wait to hear George Noory’s impression…