On Wednesday Feb. 5, from 12 noon to 12:30 pm PST (20:00 to 20:30 UTC), astronomers Nicola Omodei and Norbert Schulz will discuss their recent discoveries related to immensely energetic phenomena that can follow the death of stars. When a star dies, its final gasps can trigger the most powerful blasts of energy in the universe. They can also lead to a bizarre death dance as the voracious corpse of a dead star begins consuming a nearby companion.

Learn about the recent detection of a dying star igniting the most powerful blast ever seen — something so powerful it radiated energy that was nearly 50 billion times that of visible light. Also learn how scientists have discovered that a familiar sight in the skies is actually our earliest view yet of a star being consumed by the remnant of a nearby exploded star.

Program Details

When: February 5 (Wednesday), Noon-12:30 pm PST

Where: http://www.kavlifoundation.org/science-spotlights/spotlight-live-stellar-explosions-and-death-dances

How to Submit Questions:

Questions can be submitted ahead of and during this webcast by email to info@kavlifoundation.org or posted on Twitter with the hashtag #KavliLive.

Webmasters:

An embed code is available. Submit request to info@kavlifoundation.org

About the Participants

Nicola Omodei — Dr. Omodei led an analysis of observations of the most powerful stellar blast yet detected, a gamma-ray burst called GRB 130427A. A research associate at the Hansen Physics Laboratory at Stanford University, Dr. Omodei is also an Associate Member of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology at Stanford University.

Norbert Schulz — Dr. Schulz was key to the discovery that an exploded star and its binary partner is in fact the youngest of its kind ever identified. Dr. Schulz leads the technical effort to set up observations of this X-ray binary star system, Circinus X-1, and he’s a research scientist at the Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Bruce Lieberman (moderator) — Bruce is a freelance science writer with nearly 25 years of experience in journalism. Along with The Kavli Foundation, he has also written for Air & Space, Scientific American, Nature and other media outlets about a variety of science topics.

Contact:

Bruce Lieberman

+1 619-922-7615

bruce.lieberman@yahoo.com