Overview of Article:
This Article discusses David Bishop – a guy who is passionate about supernovas- website which contains a catalog of current supernovas sightings. This site is extremely useful because until the advent of his website most supernova sightings data was scattered around the web and very hard to find. With the advent of his website, it is easy to find current supernova listings and see images of them. [2]
You can find his website atBeyond the scope of this article, information into supernovas was researched.
A Supernova is a stellar explosion that produces extremely luminous objects made of plasma. Some Supernovas can briefly out-shine its entire host galaxy before fading from view over time. It has been speculated that it would take ten billion years for the Sun to produce the energy output of an ordinary supernova. The forces involved in a supernova can be somewhat hard to fathom by our daily standards. [1]
Typically, Supernovas happen as a result of two paths.
The first path involves the star ceasing to generate energy. As a result of this stop in energy production the star collapse under the force of its own gravity creating either a neutron star or it the star was large enough it will create a black hole. [1]
The second path involves white dwarf star which accumulate material from a companion star resulting in a runaway nuclear fusion on the stars interior that causes the star to explode.[1][1] Wikipedia, “Super Nova”, [Online document] Jan 29 2007, Available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernova
[2] “David Bishop ”, “Bright Supernova”, [Online document]
Jan 28 2007, Available at http://www.supernovae.net/