Stuff You Should Know - Supernovae: Best Around, Case Closed

Episode Date: July 19, 2022

Face it, supernovae are the most interesting phenomena in the universe. Black holes are cool, but did you know they sprout from a supernova? What could be cooler than a star exploding so powerfully, the flash it creates shines for months after?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey friends when you're staying at an Airbnb you might be like me wondering could my place be an Airbnb and if it could what could it earn? So I was pretty surprised to hear about Lisa in Manitoba who got the idea to Airbnb the backyard guest house over childhood home now The extra income helps pay her mortgage. So yeah, you might not realize it But you might have an Airbnb to find out what your place could be earning at air bnb.ca Slash host hey, I'm Lance Bass host of the new I hard podcast frosted tips with Lance Bass Do you ever think to yourself? What advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation if you do you've come to the right place? Because I'm here to help and a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life

Tell everybody yeah, everybody About my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye bye bye Listen to frosted tips with the Lance Bass on the I heart radio app Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts Welcome to stuff you should know a production of I heart radio Hey and welcome to the podcast, I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here lurking around like a weirdo and this is stuff you should know That's right interstellar a dish Yep, absolutely and Chuck I was like surely we've talked about this before and I'm sure we have maybe in the galaxy episode or

I think we did black holes was it black holes. Okay. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense actually But we've never done one I double-checked. We've never done one on super. No vey. That's a AE on the end. That's plural Episode before and we're going to now and I I have to say the reason we're going to know I think for my money is that We will be Discussing probably the most interesting phenomenon in the universe. Hey, you think so that's that's my bet You know, I'm not gonna try to sway you or persuade you if you feel differently, but that's just how I feel All right. Well, I mean it's interesting timing because of the The new images coming back from the James Webb Space Telescope. I know me kind of like right now

Yeah, I mean it looks like this thing I mean, it's a it's a thousand times greater than what Hubble can see. Yeah, and like Hubble is our Gen X's Superstar. Yeah, and it's nothing to sneeze at. I mean if it's produced some pretty amazing pictures, you know, it's fine But it's nothing compared to the James Webb And what they're saying is that this thing is potentially gonna be able to see through space dust and

and You know, they're gonna be doing something that we Can often not do which is see supernovae Yeah, which is a big deal because you know space dust can really obscure supernovae, which we'll talk about But yeah, have you seen that? I'm sure you've seen that that first picture. They released the starchild amazing Yeah, it is but at the same time It's almost like it looks like it was put together by a poorly trained graphic designer who like really over did it You know tried to fit everything into one picture. Yeah, just like really goes to show you how

Not so full the universe is and yet imagine how spread out all that stuff is the distance between those things Oh, yeah, unbelievable. It is and you know the core, uh-huh. No, uh, no pun intended but the core of this research comes from our old old website that we used to work for house stuff works calm and what the The most convoluted explanations of anything I've ever seen in my life. Yeah, we're gonna we're gonna pair it down to size We're gonna tame it. Okay. It's all and hey, listen, I don't want to pick on somebody but it almost seemed like the goal was To see how much they could confuse somebody about supernovae

Clearly explain what it what's going on there. So our goal is to wind our way through this and Lean into kids science websites like I always do. Okay. Yeah, and they work big time especially for this kind of thing because To me one of the reasons I find talking about a supernova so attractive is that it's Really understandable when you kind of like dig into it But when you realize like oh, I get this stuff You you you come to realize that like you understand like the most superficial Understanding of what's actually going on and it's still like generally the nuts and bolts the principle of it

But there's so much more detail that people, you know Dedicate their entire careers to studying these things and we're just gonna go over it in less than an hour. How about that? Well? Yeah, and if you I say far less than an hour, but if you if you look at What you're trying to understand and even if you can understand like the tiniest concepts, which you're also understanding are the tiniest Building blocks of everything basically. Yeah, because out of supernovae are born Art are heavy elements and without heavy elements. There is no life on earth Yeah, so like that saying that we're all made of stardust. It feels like a saying in saying That's very true, and that stardust comes in large part from supernovae

Steven stills Yeah, you're right, but I think he might have been smoking doobs with Carl Sagan at the time doobs Yeah, well, that's what they call their work. It's not mine just to enshrine our generation ex-ness of this whole thing That's right. I didn't say spliff at least right now. That would be Gen X I guess dobes would be more boomer right exactly So so but that's a I mean, that's a really accurate statement, right? Everything planets are made from it other stars are made from it anything alive on a planet in earth as far as we know Is made of that same stuff that gets ejected from stars during supernovae

And if you if you study this what we're talking about really is the end stage of the life cycle of a Particular star, but if you follow it back beyond that that endpoint and watch that stardust and like kind of track it and trace it You'll see that it goes to on to form more stars So really what we're looking at is a part of a cycle that very much resembles like the carbon cycle here on earth a closed system That is self-reinforcing and self-sustaining that goes over really really long periods of time, but really it just keeps regenerating itself Yeah, and the other cool thing about this web telescope is they're seeing already seeing just baby star factories out there Yeah, it's really cool stuff. I guess before we get into What is actually happening at the end life of a star? We should talk a little bit probably about

Just sort of how rare this is like if you don't know anything about supernovae you may think that This kind of thing is happening all the time in the Milky Way galaxy and we may not see it because of space dust and stuff But it is in fact happening all over the place all the time all over many many galaxies But in the Milky Way galaxy it happens about every 50 years or so give or take They track about you know to every hundred years and by track like I said sometimes they don't see them and up until the mid 2000s they thought that the last one in the Milky Way was in the 1600s and then they realized hey wait a minute We've been following other things like this this debris this interstellar debris

And that's actually the remnants of a supernova just about a hundred and forty years old We just didn't know that's what it was right exactly until later The one that they thought was the the last one from the 1600s was described by Yohan Kepler who spotted it and it's now called SN 1604 supernova 1604 because that's when it happened And that was discovered by Kepler because it was visible to the to the naked eye and there have only been five Recorded supernovae in the last millennia that were visible to the naked eye One in 1006 one in 1054 one in 1181 one in 1572 and then Kepler's in

1604 so the very ironic thing is that since we invented telescopes There hasn't been a supernova that was visible to the naked eye, which is kind of funny. Yeah, but you can't see them with Telescope that you or I could own right in fact the the high-powered telescope sometimes They're so sensitive to this, you know, as you'll see the supernovae You met a super bright light as you would imagine when a star collapses and explodes upon itself and sometimes those telescopes In fact, they're almost always overwhelmed and not very useful for those purposes. So They count on regular people in their telescopes sometimes to see these in neighboring galaxies like That 10 year old girl in 2011 that found one

240 million light years away Mm-hmm in January of 2011. It's it's it's cool that they actually Kind of depend on amateur astronomers to find these things to call them in to the the AI Yeah, that I AU Central Bureau for Astronomical telegrams sounds like something Dan Ackroyd would spit out in an infomercial right and they only accept telegrams

They that's right. You have to wire to them. Are you gonna tell me to stop again? Yeah, right? but you know you can submit that and They will take a look and they will use their Spectrometers to kind of see what? Radiation is being given off and then they can tell a lot about what's going on Yeah, big time and the reason that they there's a couple reasons they rely on those backyard astronomers one Amateur astronomers are no joke. They know what they're doing. They also have plenty of very well documented star charts So they're exactly the kind of people who number one are looking up at the skies in the first place

And then number two are familiar enough with what the sky is supposed to look like that They would actually notice a new star. That's the deal So it actually is a thing that amateur astronomers are relied on by professional astronomers And the coolest thing about this too is as we'll see like a supernova when it shows up It can it can be a new star that shines for a day a couple weeks a few months Usually not much longer than that and then it just goes away again And what's really neat about this is what you're seeing is an event that happened 25 million years ago and finally that light that's you know

25 million light years away from us that were where it originated is finally reaching us. I just find that so Colossally awesome, and I know that applies to every bit of starlight and even sunshine It's not like it's instantaneous It takes you know light years to reach us or it has to travel across light years to reach us But for some reason the idea that that that's the basis of a supernovae is is really neat to me Yeah, and in fact the very first one on record was about 2,000 years ago in China There were astronomers there who All of a sudden saw a new light like you would today and they started following it and making notes and chronicling the

You know what this thing was doing there, and then I think it took about eight months in that case Which is pretty long so maybe I don't know maybe they were off or something I mean this was 2,000 years ago No, I mean they were the Chinese astronomers of this age were pretty they were pretty sharp So they would have they would have probably been pretty accurate. Well at any rate it disappeared and They quite didn't quite understand like what was going on at the time, right? but they did write it down in a book a couple centuries later called the the book of the later Han is in the Han dynasty and

I guess at some point somebody came across this and realized that what they were describing was a supernova and What's even more mind-blowing about it is we've reached the the point where using things like spectrographs and and other like Incredibly sensitive telescopes we can look at the remnants and see what they're made of how hot they are how fast they're traveling and Basically reverse engineer their origin to determine how old something is and they've actually found that supernova Supernova 186 that was originally described in the by the Han astronomers Yeah, and we'll get to why it's useful to chart the stuff anyway because it's not I mean you might think

You know, it's a dead they're dying and dead star like who cares but it can be very useful as far as mapping the universe and Finding out what how things behave in neighboring galaxies and it's all super useful And of course, we've already talked about the elemental factor, which is why we're here. That's right That's you know, it's not us right exactly And I think the last one that was visible not to the naked eye. I think you had to use binoculars was SN 1987 yeah, and That one was outside of our galaxy. It was technically it came from the large Magellanic cloud

Which is a dwarf satellite galaxy to the Milky Way So again, it wasn't it wasn't one of those 50 that happened every year in the Milky Way It was outside of it, but you could kind of see it and it was a big deal because it by about that time We were starting to get just enough advance to like really start to make hay out of the data that we were getting from it So it was pretty cool, but wasn't that one a two-banger did that one rear it said again in 2011 So what they figured out and this will make more sense once we explain with how like an actual supernova works but the the initial

The secondary explosion like you said the double banger. I think that's actually the technical term The second explosion caught up with the material from the first explosion Right and interacted released a ton of energy and it actually brightened. So yeah, just from tracking these stuff I think they were like we didn't know that could do that and just from watching sn 1987 they learned something new Yeah, 24 years later, which is really interesting. Yeah, exactly Should we take a break? Yeah, I think so. All right. You seem hesitant Well, I do want to throw in one more thing since we're talking about these things and seeing them with the naked eye

One of the reasons why you can see them with the naked eyes because these things are so bright some of them outshine entire galaxies for the time that they're shining and that they'd be brighter than the full moon here on earth and So bright that you could actually see them during full daylight too. So that's pretty bright. That's quite bright Okay, now I'm ready Chuck. All right, we're gonna take a break. We're gonna come back We're gonna talk about the types of the two types of supernovae right after this and try and make some sense at all the stuff Hey, I'm Lance Bass host of the new I hard podcast frosted tips with Lance Bass The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road

Okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself? What advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do you've come to the right place because I'm here to help this. I promise you. Oh god, seriously I swear and you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you Oh, man, and so my husband Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep We know that Michael and a different hot sexy teen crush boy band are each week to guide you through life step by step Oh, not another one. Mm-hmm kids relationships life in general can get messy You may be thinking this is the story of my life. Just stop now if so tell everybody yeah, everybody

About my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye. Bye. Bye Listen to frosted tips with Lance Bass on the I heart radio app apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts I'm Mangeh Shatikler and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology But from the moment I was born it's been a part of my life in India. It's like smoking You might not smoke, but you're gonna get second hand Astrology and lately I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention Because maybe there is magic in the stars if you're willing to look for it So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you it got weird fast

Tantric curses major league baseball teams canceled marriages K-pop But just when I thought I had a handle on the sweet and cute little girl But just when I thought I had a handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology My whole world can crashing down situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father And my whole view on astrology It changed Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are gonna change too Listen to skyline drive and the I heart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts

Here's to the great American settlers The millions of you who settled for unsatisfying jobs because they pay the bills and uh You just kind of fell into it. And you know, it's like totally fine Just another few decades or so and then you can enjoy yourself Of course, there is something else you could do if you got something to say Hey, you could I don't know start a podcast with Spreaker from my I heart and Unleash your creative freedom and spend all day researching and talking about stuff You love and maybe even earn enough money to one day tell your

Irritating boss as you quit and walk off into the sunset. Hey, I'm no settler. I'm an explorer Spreaker.com. That's a SB our e a k e r hustle on over today You Okay, so if you want to break down the types of supernovae you don't have to Work very hard because there are two types And then there's some sub types we'll get into but these were first classified in 1941 by an astronomer named Rudolph Minkowski and

Like we said, they use spectrographs to get a good picture of what is going on inside of a Burning star because they can look at their their color lines their absorption lines And if we start at the beginning we have type 1 supernovae that have absorption lines that indicate that they don't have Hydrogen and they're super super bright But for a very short amount of time type 1 right and then type 2 do have hydrogen full stop That's right But then they started this is

Minkowski was working in the 40s like you said so as time went by and we got better and better at observing The universe by the 80s. They're like we could subdivide these even further So you've got the type 1a type 1b type 1c and then type 2 and type 1a is totally its own animal We'll talk about in a second, but type 1b 1c and type 2 They generally undergo the same colossal kind of explosion, but the big difference is they have like different kinds of Elements in them or they don't That's really the only different difference that I can see and it really doesn't make much difference for what we're going to talk about Right. So the one I was mentioning when I said type 1 are very bright for very short amount of time

It's actually 1a more specifically and They happen basically when a white dwarf star Orbits a bigger star. It's got to be orbiting another star because what it's going to do is suck matter off of that big star Until it gets to basically boom size Exactly, and they actually have figured out Well, I should say Dr. Chandraskar figured it out the the exact amount and moment where the Mass and the matter that it sucked off of the other star

Reaches that boom level and it's called the Chandraskar limit and it equals basically 1.4 solar masses And it'll probably surprise no one that a solar mass is a mass equal to our Sun and a white dwarf might start out as less than that but once it sucks enough matter off of its twin star in that binary system it will hit that limit and all of a sudden a Thermonuclear reaction happens a chain reaction exactly like the kind that happens in a thermonuclear bomb And that runaway chain reaction actually blows the star to smithereens as Yosemite Sam would put it That's right, and you know, let me jump back a sec because I think it's it helps to understand Kind of what's going on at the core of these stars anyway If you have a massive star that it is burning

Just huge huge amounts of that nuclear fuel at the core and that produces a ton of energy And obviously is going to be really really hot the same kind of thing like when we talked about our nuclear fusion For nuclear power and stuff like that the same kind of thing is going on right, but that's going to generate a ton of pressure and A star is basically a balancing act You have two forces that are kind of keeping one another in check because the star always has This gravity that's trying to squeeze it down to the smallest, you know Possible size right, but then you have this nuclear reaction going on creating all this pressure going out And it's that outward push kind of battling against the inward squeeze of gravity

That keeps a star from that keeps this from happening all the time And when it finally does run out of that fuel, which we'll talk about kind of how that happens It's going to cool off and that causes that pressure to drop Gravity wins and then you've got your big bang not the big bang, but a big bang All right, and that's that's the type 2 supernovae that you you talked about but both stars type 1a and type 2 They will they they burn Hydrogen and turn it into helium the same process goes. It's just what happens after they run out of fuel is the big difference between them Right. Well, yeah, but is the running out of fuel basically is it working its way through the elemental chart, right?

Creating all these different elements until it gets to iron and nickel Yeah, so so let's talk about that stars burn hydrogen They as they burn hydrogen it fuses into helium helium's ever heavier So it actually starts to settle more toward the core because of that That gravity because gravity can exert a stronger force on something with more mass and helium has more mass than than hydrogen So the hydrogen kind of stays in the outer layers of the star and the core is made up of helium Well as that hydrogen starts to wear out the core starts burning off the helium like using that to keep itself going as Fuel and then eventually it starts fusing it into heavier and heavier elements like you were saying and it's all fine

It's all good. I mean it's getting a little panicky the stars like got that cartoon sweat jumping off its forehead But it's still producing more energy than it's using so it can keep that that gravity at bay Although it's getting harder and harder, right? And then like you said once it starts producing iron It reaches the point where there's a net energy loss because it takes more energy to combine molecules into iron then the energy that's released from that process and that My friend is where the star starts to go boom. Yeah, and here's the part. I don't quite get maybe you can help me is I Know that's how a type 2 works but does a type 1a do the same thing but just by

Sucking in matter from its neighbor No, no, okay. No the type 1a blows up like a nuclear bomb Okay, I got you it just sets off that chain reaction and it just blows itself up All right the other way that a type 1a can go out is if it has so it's got to reach that Chandra scar limit of 1.4 solar masses and then that chain reaction happens if that star Never reaches that limit But it runs out of fuel it'll go from a white dwarf to a black dwarf and a black dwarf is basically like a star

That's a campfire that you stopped adding wood to and it eventually just gets dimmer and dimmer and then it finally goes out on its Own that's basically a black dwarf. Okay. All right. Well, that makes that makes sense then. Yeah, because it's basically Fusing all all of the carbon and everything like at that core and it just it can't handle that kind of load The type 2 you mean no the type 1 No, I think it just runs out of fuel and becomes a black dwarf or if it has enough fuel I mean to go boom. Okay. Yeah, it has it has enough fuel that it yes I I don't know if it's carbon or if it's hydrogen or whatever, but it has enough of whatever it needs to Set off that runaway thermonuclear chain reaction and blow itself up. I think it's carbon. Okay, so yeah, and that would make sense

But it's so it turns into a thermonuclear carbon bomb a star-sized version. That's what happens with the type 1a the type 2 Then this is the whole reason it's different Chuck is the type 2 star starts out as much larger much more massive Then it's type 1a star, right? Yeah, like 8x the Sun. Yes, exactly And so yeah, it has to be at least that time that size or else it's not gonna work It'll probably turn into the type 1a kind of supernovae So because it's eight times the size or the mass of the Sun It has a really strong gravitational force working on it And then that is what really plays that major role in a type 2 supernovae that gravity

Sucking everything in toward the core and then the denser and more massive the core is because more stuff is getting sucked into it And more and more iron is being put together that that is what makes it Implode with such force that it actually explodes with I would guess an equal amount of force Yeah, like it collapses in on itself and once it gets to the center it has nowhere to go, but back out, right? Yeah, exactly, and there's like a lot of details to it where like as stuff is getting sucked into the center That it hits that core and it's traveling those particles are traveling so fast like you know how Like a piece of space dust can like go right through a satellite Okay, so that's that's this on steroids or this is that on steroids

It's pulling those particles toward the core and when they hit it they bounce off They release a shockwave and that actually explodes it starts exploding against itself And then at the same time the pressure from gravity exerted on the core is so great that those iron atoms actually get squeezed together so tightly that the protons and electrons get confused into neutrons and the the the solar mass can go from something like you know 5,000 miles in diameter Down to 12 miles in diameter and again, this is something I don't think we pointed out yet So I probably shouldn't say again Chuck all of this is happening in less than a second

Yeah, the the the end game happens very very fast. Yeah after you know a 10 billion plus life basically You know, you know really burning out instead of fading away not to get corny there But if you look at a 1a when that thing explodes It's gonna create a ton of iron being blasted out because of that heat. It's gonna be very symmetrical and They actually use that because they're so Sort of consistent in that they the 1a is all explode at the same time In their death and they peak with that same brightness. They use that and it's it's called a standard candle and

It's I think it's just basically sort of like a baseline measurement, right? Yeah, they can use it to as a measurement against other stuff in the neighborhood to figure out how bright those things are What they're made of how old they are that kind of thing. So, yeah, that's it's pretty cool You wouldn't think about it, but it does make sense that since they all follow the same process at the same time totally Are we due for a breaker now? Yeah, I think we have Chuck. All right We're gonna come back and I don't even know what we're gonna talk about. So that'll be very exciting for everybody Hey, I'm Lance Bass host of the new I hard podcast frosted tips with Lance Bass The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road

Okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself? What advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation if you do you've come to the right place? Because I'm here to help this I promise you. Oh god. Seriously. I swear and you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh man. And so my husband Michael. Um, hey, that's me Yep, we know that Michael and a different hot sexy teen crush boy band or each week to guide you through life step by step Oh, not another one. Uh-huh kids relationships life in general can get messy You may be thinking this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so tell everybody Yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen

So we'll never ever have to say bye bye. Bye Listen to frosted tips with the Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts I'm Mangeh Shatikular and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology But from the moment I was born it's been a part of my life in India It's like smoking you might not smoke But you're gonna get second-hand astrology and lately I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention Because maybe there is magic in the stars if you're willing to look for it

So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you it got weird fast Tantric curses major league baseball teams canceled marriages k-pop But just when I thought I had a handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology My whole world can crashing down Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father And my whole view on astrology It changed Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are gonna change too

Listen to skyline drive and the iHeart radio app Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts Here's to the great American settlers The millions of you who settled for unsatisfying jobs because they pay the bills and uh You just kind of fell into it and you know, it's like totally fine Just another few decades or so and then you can enjoy yourself Of course, there is something else you could do if you got something to say You could I don't know start a podcast with speaker from iHeart and unleash your creative freedom and spend all day Researching and talking about stuff you love and maybe even earn enough money to one day tell your

Irritating boss as you quit and walk off into the sunset. Hey, I'm no settler. I'm an explorer Spreaker.com. That's a sbr eak er Hustle on over today What's left Actually, there's a lot left which is pretty neat so um We we've learned a lot from supernovae and just by studying them

We start finding things out that there's like a lot of caveats to what we just said Not everything follows the exact same process With the exception of those type 1a that that becomes standard candles because they they follow such a A specific roadmap, but the type 2a are a little more chaotic Um than than what we thought before and that's evidence from a supernova that was discovered in 2006 That um is named s n l s o 3 c 3 b b Right. Is that is that the one they nicknamed champagne supernova? Yes, because it was 2006 Were you into oasis? No or brit pop at all. Yeah, I like brit pop, but I'd like more 80s brit pop like

That whole like 24-hour party people era. Oh, okay All right, okay. I'm not dogging on anything else. I'm holding my tongue holding my tongue No, no, I wasn't I wasn't an oasis fan, although There's a couple of the songs I really liked but that was an era for me where I think I was just listening to other stuff. Um Emily was really into that era of brit pop though. She was she she liked that stuff and it's fine every time, you know She puts on a little brit pop mix. It's fine. What else is she listening to from the era? Uh

Who verve that bittersweet symphony? Yeah, I think a little bit of um early only cold play Uh, it's it's almost like it's kind of seems very uncool that you've been mentioned cold play now. Yeah, am I wrong? But I think those first couple of albums she liked Uh Who else it seems like there were some other brit pop bands. I'm just not thinking about I'm sure there's plenty others for sure I mean I'd we can just talk about brit pop for the rest of the episode. No, no No, we've got to go back to supernovae and specifically the champagne supernova from 2006 Right, uh blur. That's another one

Okay. Yeah. Yeah, blur's great. Sure Absolutely The doves she liked them. I never oh, yeah I like them too. Actually. I didn't realize they were brit pop Yeah, I think uh, I mean not not as brit poppy. It's like travis and stuff like that, but okay. Yeah, I like those doves albums Those were good. Yeah, they really were good. They're definitely an overlooked group Uh, all right, so they called this one the champagne supernova in 2006 SNL s zero three

You already said it. I knew but it's fun to say Uh, but this one was uh, this one kind of rocked everyone's world because it was only Uh, not only it extended up to two times solar mass and it exceeded that uh shander's car limit Which was 1.4 previously and we thought that was that was it like it couldn't go any higher And it turned it not to 11 but to two. Yeah, and so it not only, um contradicted the the then understanding Of type 1a supernovae it contradicted something I said not 10 minutes ago Well, and does that mean that's now just thrown out forever and like anything can happen or is it still generally 1.4? I would guess it's generally generally 1.4 because I don't think they made it up

I think the math suggested it now They just have to figure out like how to adjust the math to include this anomaly and that's actually physicists love that stuff Like the whole reason they're running the large haydron collider is because they're trying to create stuff that they've never seen before So that they can figure out how it works Um, they've reached the levels of of theory and now need like more data and that's what they're doing So when they come across more data like this in the field of astronomy, I'm pretty sure it's the exact same thing They're like, yes, this is a total anomaly and now we're gonna have a better understanding once we figure out How this thing fits into our current understanding

Keen that was another britpop band They were okay. Yeah. Yeah, that was the they were the one from the lake house with kianu and sander bullock that song Um, oh, I never saw that emily watches that movie over and over just because of the house That oh, it's a great house, but also the tree part is really amazing too. I love it. It's a great. I never saw it It is worth watching. She will watch Bad movies for architecture alone over and over Okay, but I suspect she also probably likes that movie because it's pretty good Just bring your Kleenex if you sit down and watch. All right. I'll have to have to ask her

It's a good one anything kianu reef says is great for sure. Well, I love that guy. Okay Hey, hey listen. He's great. He's great in everything. I'll say that how about that? I mean just a great human I like that guy. Sure. Yeah Um, all right, so where are we I've wasted enough time Okay, here's where we get to another really interesting part. Okay The type 2 supernovae can produce a couple of different outcomes and it depends on The size of the star when it's at its main sequence Which is that those billions of years that it's burning. It's it reaches its adult size

And if a type 2 star has a size that's greater than 40 solar masses has a mass 40 times our own sun or more When that thing goes off when it reaches the end of its life and that core collapse happens it will um actually Turn into a black hole It gets sucked so thoroughly into itself that it basically goes boop and becomes a black hole Well, that's another reason we might not see it, right? Yes, but that's why some supernovae kind of like flicker for a second then go out And that you just you know that it was a greater than 40 solar bodies

mass star that just underwent supernova Yeah, and that isn't that amazing because all that same stuff that's going on that creates that collapse It doesn't let the explosion happen The force of gravity is so great because this thing is so massive that it doesn't let it escape And it it eventually just sucks itself into a black hole the other way it can go Which for my money is equally interesting Is if it has a a massive less than 40 solar bodies, it'll become a neutron star So that core sticks around remember I said it can go from a 5000 mile diameter star down to a 12 mile diameter in a second

Yeah That 12 mile diameter core can stick around and that's what's called a neutron star And one of the cool things about neutron stars is that sometimes they spin And when they spin they're putting off so much energy that they release a flash of light on a really regular schedule And those are what's called pulsars That's right, and that's I know we've talked about pulsars before Surely we have before too, but there's one in particular. Did you see that one? That's the fastest spinning pulsar in the universe

But do you mean psr j 1748-2446 ad the one and only Do they have a cool name for that one? I don't think so. I didn't see it I think they think that's a cool name for it. Oh boy It's that the kind of people we're dealing with It is 16 kilometers in diameter which Uh, it sounds big but as far as stars go it's not that big, right? No, because I mean like it's the size of a an american city You know the downtown part of it and then but it's the same mass or greater of our own sun

Up to 40 times the mass of our own some but in that small of a package That's dense, baby. Yeah, it is Uh, this thing is really cooking though. It's uh spinning at about 700 And 16 times per second, which is an equivalent of Close to 43 000 rpms. Yeah, so imagine downtown los angeles spinning 716 times per second out there in outer space Sometimes it feels like that. Am I right? Yeah, especially after a long night

Uh, if all this sounds potentially dangerous, you know as far as us here on earth Um, it would be super dangerous if there was one that exploded Close to earth. It would be very huge first of all There would be all kinds of the gnarly radiation that would not be good for us. Oh, yeah, however Um, it has to be a really really really big star to explode as a supernova and We know what's out there right now and there aren't any stars that are nearly close enough. It would be millions of years Uh for a star close enough to us to be big enough to become a supernova

So you don't have to worry about it, but there it has happened in the past. There are traces of past supernovae here on earth Uh, in particular, um radioactive iron 60 Which I don't think it's a open and shut case, but it's a it's a really good indicator that that was there's supernova debris Um, just buried down there on the seafloor Yeah, and they're trying to correlate it with some of the mass extinctions that took place in earth's history And they think that maybe, you know, it didn't like blow, you know The mastodon off of its feet and put it in extinction

But instead it it might have had a real effect on the ozone layer which allowed more uv than normal through Which could have triggered a climate change that led to a mass extinction Well, they'd say it does at least correspond Uh close to the beginning of the Pleistocene Ice Age, so I don't think they've said like that's the cause, but Uh, I don't know couldn't couldn't have helped for it to be like a genuinely planet sterilizing event though It would have to be within 100 to 150 light years Um, or no 50 light years and the closest one that could go supernova is 1k pegasus and it's 150 light years away So like you said, we're not we're not in any kind of danger and our sun will never go supernova because it's not

um Eight solar masses and it's not going to reach 1.4 solar masses because it's not a part of a binary star And obviously it's one solar mass because the solar mass is equal to our sun's mass I think planet sterilizing event should be our britbop album title. I think yes, I couldn't agree more It's not very britboppy, but we could push the boundaries Sure, as long as like we're wearing white jeans that are pegged with black patent leather shoes on the cover It doesn't matter what we name it Did we do this one one more thing there's such things as zombie stars

Oh, this is a new thing that they figured out in the last few years That's an anomaly that we don't understand, but they're basically stars that undergo supernova Multiple times doesn't really make much sense But uh, they are starting to figure that out And it's not the case of uh, like the one in 87 in 2011 Not that I know of no because it it it would it would only hit its

You know ejecta once as far as I can tell this is like Like at least five or six times that they've found this one zombie star to have gone supernova Interesting. Yeah, I think so too. And maybe that's the name of our britbop band What zombie star? Yeah, that zombie star Planet sterilizing event. I think yeah, we're on to something right. Yeah Totally although diarrhea planet could use planet sterilizing event And that would be a great album for them. I'm sure if this has gotten back to those guys They're like, why didn't you talk about us this much while we were still together?

Maybe we can get a reunion going stadium tour. I would go Totally, um, but yeah zombie star is a great name for our brit pop band I agree. All right. Well, if we accomplished anything, it's that yeah, I think we accomplished more than that chuck and since I said that I want to direct everybody to the house stuff works article how a supernova works clearly they hedged and didn't just call it how supernovae work um, and uh, there's plenty of other stuff that's really interesting all over the internet to read about it And since I said that like I said, it's time for listener mail Uh, yeah, I watched some I watched some cool kid videos on youtube

Uh, they're they're always just very instructive. I know we say it a lot But if you haven't caught it in the past if they're difficult Scientific concepts for you to understand as an adult or if you're a kid That these kids websites they break it down like adult websites should You know, they'd really do it right. It's good. They really do Um, all right, I'm gonna call this Apparently we're we've been patronizing for a long time About the dark ages. Uh, we've been called out about this before

Have we really? Yeah, we just never correct it All right, well, I'm gonna do it again. Okay. Uh, this is from Greg. I know you get a lot of emails So you'll probably never even read this Um, I also know josh hates correction emails. That's not true at all True, uh, but for the love of god, could you stop referring to the medieval era As the dark ages as you did in your latest my episode To now dated victorian concept that implies medieval people were stupid and ignorant That nothing happened for several hundred years until the renaissance magically appeared

It's patronizing And devalues the progress made because of great medieval thinkers As well as supposing that the everyday person between the 10th and 15th centuries was a moron Who bungled through life with no meaningful contribution I would hope that uh, your years of research into our progress as a species would have shown But this is not how people evolved So if you could stop using such an insulting term For a significant period of human history, we'd benefit all concerned

And that is from greg And uh, for me greg I just say dark ages because people know what we're generally talking about as far as an era goes I I never mean that nothing good came from the dark ages, but I don't know. Maybe Maybe I should rethink even saying that. I don't know. I think greg's beef is with Society in general and he's really picking on us and taking it out on us Because it's exactly like you said that we're using that so people know what we're talking about That's like saying can you please stop saying enlightenment like everything they did was so great

There were there were plenty of morons in the enlightenment That's right that aren't getting their due nice work chuck man You just pick greg up put him in a health nelson and body slammed him. No greg. I hug you We're gonna get another email from greg for this one If you want to be like greg and call us out about something that really gets under your skin stuck in your craw Gums in your hair that kind of thing Uh, you can email to us at stuff podcast at i heart radio dot com Stuff you should know is a production of i heart radio for more podcasts my heart radio visit the i heart radio app

Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows Hey, i'm lance bass host of the new i heart podcast frosted tips with lance bass Do you ever think to yourself? What advice would lance bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do you've come to the right place because i'm here to help and a different hot sexy teen crush Boybander each week to guide you through life tell everybody you everybody About my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye. Bye. Bye. Bye Listen to frosted tips with the lance bass on the i heart radio app apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts

I'm munga shatikular and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe You can find in major league baseball international banks k-pop groups even the white house But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject something completely unbelievable happened to me And my whole view on astrology changed whether you're a skeptic or a believer give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too Listen to skyline drive on the i heart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts Do you love movies? Well, I have the podcast for you. Hey there This is mike d for movie mikes movie podcasts your go-to source for all things movies each episode explores a different movie topic Plus spoiler-free reviews on the latest streaming and movies in theaters

You'll also get interviews with actors and directors to take a look behind the scenes of your favorite movies Listen to new episodes of movie mikes movie podcasts every monday on the natural podcast network available on the i heart radio app Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts