A supernova 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 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.
A supernova remnant (SNR) is the structure resulting from the explosion of a star in a supernova. The supernova remnant is bounded by an expanding shock wave, and consists of ejected material expanding from the explosion, and the interstellar material it sweeps up and shocks along the way.
Rashid Alievich Sunyaev is a Soviet and Russian astrophysicist of Tatar descent. He got his MS degree from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) in 1966. He became a professor at MIPT in 1974. Sunyaev was the head of the High Energy Astrophysics Department of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and has been chief scientist of the Academy's Space Research Institute since 1992. He has also been a director of the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Garching, Germany since 1996, and Maureen and John Hendricks Distinguished Visiting Professor in the School of Natural Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton since 2010.
A pulsar wind nebula, sometimes called a plerion, is a type of nebula sometimes found inside the shell of a supernova remnant (SNR), powered by winds generated by a central pulsar. These nebulae were proposed as a class in 1976 as enhancements at radio wavelengths inside supernova remnants. They have since been found to be infrared, optical, millimetre, X-ray and gamma ray sources.
Bryan Malcolm Gaensler is an Australian astronomer based at the University of Toronto. He studies magnetars, supernova remnants, and magnetic fields. In 2014, he was appointed as Director of the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics at the University of Toronto, after James R. Graham's departure. He is currently the co-chair of the Canadian 2020 Long Range Plan Committee with Pauline Barmby.
Robert P. Kirshner is an American astronomer, Chief Program Officer for Science for the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and the Clowes Research Professor of Science at Harvard University. Kirshner has worked in several areas of astronomy including the physics of supernovae, supernova remnants, the large-scale structure of the cosmos, and the use of supernovae to measure the expansion of the universe.
A Type II supernova results from the rapid collapse and violent explosion of a massive star. A star must have at least 8 times, but no more than 40 to 50 times, the mass of the Sun (M☉) to undergo this type of explosion. Type II supernovae are distinguished from other types of supernovae by the presence of hydrogen in their spectra. They are usually observed in the spiral arms of galaxies and in H II regions, but not in elliptical galaxies; those are generally composed of older low-mass stars, with few of the young highly massive stars necessary to cause a supernova.
Victoria Michelle Kaspi is an American-Canadian astrophysicist and a professor at McGill University. Her research primarily concerns neutron stars and pulsars.
Franco Pacini was an Italian astrophysicist and professor at the University of Florence. He carried out research, mostly in High Energy Astrophysics, in Italy, France, United States and at the European Southern Observatory.
Alice Kust Harding is an American astrophysicist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland.
Thomas James Bernatowicz, from Washington University, was awarded the status of Fellow in the American Physical Society, having been nominated by their Division of Astrophysics in 1999.
Michael J. Leitch from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, was awarded the status of Fellow in the American Physical Society, after they were nominated by their Division of Nuclear Physics in 2000, for his contributions to experimental medium-energy and high-energy nuclear physics, in particular for his lead role in measurements of pion double-charge exchange at low energies, and his leadership in the measurement of nuclear dependencies of J/psi production and of open charm production.
Glenn David Starkmann is a Canadian physicist and professor at Case Western Reserve University. He was awarded with the Status of Fellow in the American Physical Society, after being nominated by their Division of Astrophysics in 2005, for "his wide-ranging and creative contributions to particle astrophysics, including explorations of the possibility of non-trivial topology in the universe, and uncovering unexpected features in the cosmic microwave background fluctuations at large angular scales."
William Arthur Coles, from the University of California, San Diego, was awarded the status of Fellow in the American Physical Society, after they were nominated by their Topical Group in Plasma Astrophysics in 2006, for his major contributions to our understanding of the effect of plasma turbulence on radio wave propagation, and the use of radio propagation measurements to infer properties of remote turbulent plasmas in interplanetary space and the interstellar medium.
James T. Linnemann from Michigan State University, was awarded the status of Fellow in the American Physical Society, after he was nominated by the Division of Particles and Fields in 2009, for original research in high energy physics and particle astrophysics through electronics and software applications, seminal contributions to the discoveries of the top quark and TeV gamma-ray sources, searches for supersymmetry, and applications of statistics.
Anthony Raymond Bell is Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford and the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. He is a Senior Research Fellow at Somerville College, Oxford.
NGC 1060 is a lenticular galaxy approximately 256 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Triangulum. It was discovered by William Herschel on September 12, 1784.
Joshua A. Frieman is a theoretical astrophysicist who lives and works in the United States. He is a senior scientist at Fermilab and a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of Chicago. Frieman is known for his work studying dark energy and cosmology, and he co-founded the Dark Energy Survey experiment.
