Webcast: "Stellar Explosions and Death Dances"

By Nancy Atkinson - February 5, 2014 at 2:38 PM UTC | Stars

When stars die, their final gasps can trigger the most powerful blasts of energy in the universe. Their demise can also lead to a bizarre death dance as the voracious corpse of a dead star begins consuming a nearby companion.

Today (Feb. 5) you can watch a live webcast (or watch the replay later) to learn about the recent detection of a dying star igniting the most powerful blast ever seen - something so powerful it radiated energy that was nearly 50 billion times that of visible light. Also learn how scientists have discovered that a familiar sight in the skies is actually our earliest view yet of a star being consumed by the remnant of a nearby exploded star.

The webcast starts at 19:00 UTC (3 pm EDT, Noon PDT). You can watch below. To submit questions ahead of time or during the webcast, send an email to

[email protected]

or post on Twitter with hashtag #KavliLive. You can find additional information from the Kavli Foundation

here

.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com