Glossary term: Supernova
Description: A supernova is a massive stellar explosion. Supernovae briefly become by far the most luminous object in their galaxy before fading over the course of a few years. There are two main pathways that lead to supernovae. The first (Type Ia) involves a white dwarf accreting matter from a binary companion star. Once the white dwarf is destabilized, either by achieving a mass of over 1.4 solar masses (known as the Chandrasekhar limit) or by accumulating enough helium on its surface, it explodes, leaving no remnant. The other main pathway that forms a supernova (Type II) is the evolution of a star with a mass greater than eight solar masses. At the end of such a star's evolution it explodes, resulting in a neutron star or (for the most massive stars) a stellar-mass black hole.
Supernovae are the source of many of the chemical elements, especially those heavier than magnesium.
Related Terms:
- Binary Star
- Black Hole
- Neutron Star
- Nova
- Solar Mass
- Stellar Remnants
- White Dwarf
- Gamma Ray Burst
- Standard Candle
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Term and definition status: This term and its definition have been approved by a research astronomer and a teacher
The OAE Multilingual Glossary is a project of the IAU Office of Astronomy for Education (OAE) in collaboration with the IAU Office of Astronomy Outreach (OAO). The terms and definitions were chosen, written and reviewed by a collective effort from the OAE, the OAE Centers and Nodes, the OAE National Astronomy Education Coordinators (NAECs) and other volunteers. You can find a full list of credits here. All glossary terms and their definitions are released under a Creative Commons CC BY-4.0 license and should be credited to "IAU OAE".
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In Other Languages
- Arabic: الانفجار الاعظم
- German: Supernova
- Persian: ابرنواختر
- French: Supernova
- Italian: Supernova
- Japanese: 超新星 (external link)
- Simplified Chinese: 超新星
- Traditional Chinese: 超新星
Related Media
Death of a massive star
Caption: A multi-wavelength image taken with telescopes on the Earth and in space of a neutron star within our neighbouring Small Magellanic Cloud galaxy. A neutron star (seen here as the blue spot surrounded by a red ring) is the final product of gravitational collapse, compression and explosion of a massive star, left embedded in its supernova remnant (in green).
Credit: ESO/NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)/F. Vogt et al.
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License: CC-BY-4.0 Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) icons
Remnant of SN 1006
Caption: This image shows the remnant of the supernova SN 1006. This was probably the result of a white dwarf that accreted so much material from a binary companion star that the white dwarf exploded (this is called a Type 1a supernova by astronomers). This explosion happened several thousand years ago, however it took time for the light from this event to reach Earth, only arriving in the year 1006. This bright explosion was noticed by observers across the Earth and its appearance was noted in the records of many different societies.
Here we see the effect that supernova has had on its surroundings in the galaxy. The force of the explosion has blown a huge bubble in the surrounding interstellar gas with a hot shockwave at its edge. The image appears to be a simple color picture but it actually represents light far beyond what our eye can see. The blue is X-ray data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, the yellow and orange are data from optical telescopes and the red is detections in radio waves from the Very Large Array and the Green Bank Telescope. The bright blue of the outer shell shows the gas there is very hot and that the explosion produced energetic shock waves.
Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Rutgers/G.Cassam-Chenai, Hughes et al.; Radio: NRAO/AUI/NSF/GBT/VLA/Dyer, Maddalena & Cornwell; Optical: Middlebury College/F.Winkler, NOAO/AURA/NSF/CTIO Schmidt & DSS
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License: PD Public Domain icons
