Starts With A Bang podcast #92 — Type Ia supernovae

<p>1990s, observations of type Ia supernovae were the key data set that led astronomers to conclude that the Universe&rsquo;s expansion was accelerating, and some new form of energy, now known as dark energy, was permeating the Universe. Over the past ~25 years, those observations have gotten so good that we now have a tension within the expanding Universe, as different methods of measuring the expansion rate yield two different sets of mutually incompatible results.</p> <p>What&rsquo;s remarkable is that this result is robust even though we&rsquo;re still somewhat uncertain as to exactly how these type Ia supernovae occur. The original scenario, put forth by Chandrasekhar nearly a century ago, still has its adherents, but the evidence appears very strong that approaching and reaching a &ldquo;mass limit&rdquo; beyond which atoms are unstable can only explain a small fraction of white dwarf behavior. Instead, a new paradigm dominated by merging white dwarfs may explain nearly all type Ia supernova explosions!</p> <p><a href="https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/starts-with-a-bang-podcast-92-type-ia-supernovae-a212c6e4ba45"><strong>Click Here</strong></a></p>
Tags: Bang Podcast