AN astronomer at Hatfield's University of Hertfordshire has helped discover that exploding stars produce material travelling at more than half the speed of light.
Although the largest and most spectacular stellar explosions, known as gamma ray bursts and usually billions of light years from Earth, have long been known to emit particles travelling at nearly the speed of light (186,000 miles a second), Dr Jonathon Granot is part of a Dutch-led team observing a smaller and relatively close supernova, only 35 million light years away.
He said: "Supernovae are very distant sources and their radio emission fades quickly. Therefore, the highest angular resolution imaging technique, called Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI), is required to receive the extremely faint emission and reveal the details."
The team, who brought together observations from radio telecopes across the world, showed that a small proportion of the material emitted from the star in its death throes was travelling at 60 per cent of the speed of light at least.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here