"It was just an ordinary star" says N.C. State professor and astrophysicist John Blondin of the star formerly known as Sanduleak 202-69. "No one paid attention to it until it blew up". This unfortunate star, which became more famous in death than in life, has become internationally reknown as Supernova 1987a, the closest star explosion to us since 1604.
Both Blondin and NCSU physics professor Kazimierz Borkowski have been attracting international attention as well. Their research on this supernova was presented last week at the American Astronomical Society conference in Toronto,Ontario and will be presented again next month in a conference in Chile.
The star blew up approximately 167,000 years ago in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a neighboring galaxy. For one brief moment, it put out more energy than the rest of the observable universe combined. The explosion sent debris flying at a rate of about 5 millions miles per hour and the resulting shockwave heated the area to several hundred million degrees.
On earth this supernova (SN 1987a for short) was detected in the early morning of Feb 23,1987 at Chile's Las Campanas Observatory. It was visible to the naked eye for viewers in the Southern Hemisphere for almost a year. Since then, the Hubble Space Telescope has made several observations which show three hydrogen gas rings surrounding the supernova remnant.
Blondin and Burkowski have created a computer model to predict what will happen when the supernova debris hits these rings. This model predicts that the debris will reach the inner ring in about 2005 "setting off a new set of fireworks" according to Blondin. The heat and energy of the debris will cause the ring to light up and illuminate the inside rim of the ring like a fluorescent light.
The computer simulation was written in the FORTRAN computer language and run on a Cray supercomputer from the N.C. Supercomputing Center. It has generated several video clips modeling the collision, one of which was created by Jennifer Kehoe, a summer undergraduate assistant and senior at NCSU.
Despite having to wait to see if their model is correct, both scientists will continue to find out more about SN 1987a thanks to new instrumentation that will be installed on the Hubble Space Telescope next month. Data is also being recorded by the German satellite ROSAT.
The fact that SN 1987a occurred so close to our galaxy has given scientists much cause to celebrate because of numerous discoveries and increased knowledge about supernovae. Blondin will be among one of the many astrophysicists in Chile celebrating the tenth anniversary of the supernova, lecturing and partying with his international colleagues.