Supernova II 1988 NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)

more at http://quickfound.net/

On the February 23, 1987, discovery of supernova SN 1987A. Explains how formation of heavy elements occurs when a supernova is formed and how studying the development of stars can help in understanding the origin of the universe.

Originally a public domain film from NASA, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SN_1987A

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

SN 1987A was a type II supernova in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy satellite of the Milky Way. It occurred approximately 51.4 kiloparsecs (168,000 light-years) from Earth and was the closest observed supernova since Kepler's Supernova, visible from earth in 1604. 1987A's light reached Earth on February 23, 1987, and as the earliest supernova discovered that year, was labeled "1987A". Its brightness peaked in May, with an apparent magnitude of about 3.

It was the first supernova that modern astronomers were able to study in great detail, and its observations have provided much insight into core-collapse supernovae.

SN 1987A provided the first opportunity to confirm by direct observation the radioactive source of the energy for visible light emissions, by detecting predicted gamma-ray line radiation from two of its abundant radioactive nuclei. This proved the radioactive nature of the long-duration post-explosion glow of supernovae...

SN 1987A was discovered independently by Ian Shelton and Oscar Duhalde at the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile on February 24, 1987, and within the same 24 hours by Albert Jones in New Zealand. On March 4–12, 1987, it was observed from space by Astron, the largest ultraviolet space telescope of that time...

Four days after the event was recorded, the progenitor star was tentatively identified as Sanduleak −69 202 (Sk -69 202), a blue supergiant. After the supernova faded, that identification was definitely confirmed by Sk −69 202 having disappeared. This was an unexpected identification, because models of high mass stellar evolution at the time did not predict that blue supergiants are susceptible to a supernova event.

Some models of the progenitor attributed the color to its chemical composition rather than its evolutionary state, particularly the low levels of heavy elements, among other factors. There was some speculation that the star might have merged with a companion star before the supernova. However, it is now widely understood that blue supergiants are natural progenitors of some supernovae, although there is still speculation that the evolution of such stars could require mass loss involving a binary companion...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernova

A supernova (/ˌsuːpərnoʊvə/ plural: supernovae /ˌsuːpərnoʊviː/ or supernovas, abbreviations: SN and SNe) is a powerful and luminous stellar explosion. This transient astronomical event occurs during the last evolutionary stages of a massive star or when a white dwarf is triggered into runaway nuclear fusion. The original object, called the progenitor, either collapses to a neutron star or black hole, or it is completely destroyed. The peak optical luminosity of a supernova can be comparable to that of an entire galaxy, before fading over several weeks or months.

Supernovae are more energetic than novae. In Latin, nova means "new", referring astronomically to what appears to be a temporary new bright star. Adding the prefix "super-" distinguishes supernovae from ordinary novae, which are far less luminous. The word supernova was coined by Walter Baade and Fritz Zwicky in 1931.

Only three naked-eye supernova events have been observed in the Milky Way during the last thousand years. The most recent directly observed supernova in the Milky Way was Kepler's Supernova in 1604, but the remnants of more recent supernovae have been found. Observations of supernovae in other galaxies suggest they occur in the Milky Way on average about three times every century. These supernovae would almost certainly be observable with modern astronomical telescopes. The most recent naked-eye supernova was SN 1987A, the explosion of a blue supergiant star in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite of the Milky Way...