I wasn’t aware that stars were gender-orientated.

But - they have balls?!

Well, you must know, I knew one personally and had a great time with him before I was transported to the Crab Nebula for a ride atop the neutron star. I got very sick… if I had been lucky

Otherwise you are right and in this case I apologize

First, I think we have observed SN Ia’s and they used to have a companion star wich (sic) mostly survived the explosion (and he was REALLY close because his own matter was sucked in by the white dwarf that went SN.

Er… “he”/”his”? I wasn’t aware that stars were gender-orientated. Do you know something that I don’t, DrFlimmer?

I was going to respond to kuhnigget’s question, but I decided not to bother because he is too preoccupied arguing with some UFO nutter on the “Aliens? Yes. UFOs? No.” thread. So, he will probably miss it, anyway.

Kuhnigget: As I understand it, SN do not trigger other SN (at least not directly). However, the massive stars all live for very, very short periods of time (by stellar standards) - the more massive a star is, the shorter its lifetime. This means that when you’ve got lots of massive star formation, you get lots of SN. How one SN can indirectly trigger another is that the shock wave from a SN may also destabilize other nearby clouds (or sub-clouds, in this case), causing them to collapse, form massive stars, and go SN.

I am not quite sure that a supernove could trigger another one. First, I think we have observed SN Ia’s and they used to have a companion star wich mostly survived the explosion (and he was REALLY close because his own matter was sucked in by the white dwarf that went SN. And to be able to do that the stars have really to be closed by). Second, a SN II (like SN 1987A) is a massive star with its core running out of fuel. The core collapses and the outer layers explode (the process is rather complicates as you might know). But to go SN the core HAS to stop the fusion. And a “nearby” SN won’t be able to do that, I guess.
I would say: No, a SN cannot trigger another one, although that would be nice to observe, indeed. On the other hand, a SN triggers the creation of new stars - so, as always, some old things have to go for something new to come!

@Andy Beaton
“Can we please rotate the earth from North to South? ”
Let’s agree just do this on special occasions. I would soon grow tired of: toilets flushing the opposite direction, the dog bedding down the opposite way, my equinox egg falling in reverse the following day, and the negative horoscopic effect caused by the absence of Draco/the influence of the Southern Cross.