Ep. 750: Supernova Early Warning System

Astronomy Cast

Science, Astronomy, Natural Sciences, Space

4.8 • 3.4K Ratings

🗓️ 7 April 2025

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Astronomy Cast Ep. 750: Supernova Early Warning System By Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay Streamed live on Mar 31, 2025. Hosted by: Fraser Cain and Dr. Pamela L. Gay When enormous stars detonate as supernovae they release a burst of neutrinos that can be the first sign of a coming explosion. Now, astronomers have built a network to watch for that flash of neutrinos, and help direct their telescopes for when the sky show begins. Supernovae explosions occur in stages, with neutrinos being emitted hours before photons. If we can accurately detect those neutrinos, we might just be able to get on target before the light show even starts.... Maybe. SUPPORTED BY YOU This Episode is made possible thanks to our Patrons on Patreon. Join at the Galaxy Group level or higher to be listed in our YouTube videos. Thanks to: BogieNet, Stephen Vei, Jeanette Wink, Siggi Kemmler, Andrew Poelstra, Brian Cagle, David Truog, Ed, David, Gerhard Schwarzer, Sergio Sancevero, Sergey Manouilov, Burry Gowen, David Rossetter, Michael Purcell, Jason Kwong

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Astronomycast, Episode 750, the Supernova Early Warning System. Welcome to AstronomyCast, our weekly
0:56.6	facts-based journey through the cosmos, where we help you understand not only what we know,
0:59.9	but how we know what we know. I'm Fraser Kane. I'm the publisher of the universe today.
1:03.7	With me, as always is Dr. Pamela Gay, a senior scientist for the Planetary Science Institute
1:08.2	and the director of Cosmo Quest. Hey, panel, how you doing?
1:11.4	I am doing well.
1:13.2	Happy 750th episode, Fraser.
1:16.7	This is it.
1:17.6	750 episodes.
1:18.8	And we are going to celebrate by producing an episode of Astronomycast.
1:22.6	Which is like science, science.
1:25.3	We need science.
1:26.2	That's just what we do.
1:27.1	That's why we're here.
1:30.2	So when enormous stars detonate a supernovae, they release a burst of neutrinos that can be the
1:36.2	first sign of a coming explosion. Now astronomers have built a network to watch for that flash of neutrinos
1:42.9	and help direct their telescopes for when
1:45.9	the sky show begins. And we will talk about it a second, but it's time for a break.
1:54.5	And we're back. So before we get into all of the really cool science and the network itself and I think people are
2:03.6	going to go wait, wait, wait, what? You see the neutrinos before you see the light from the
2:11.7	supernova. That's weird. I thought neutrinos can't, nothing moves faster than the speed of light.
2:18.7	The supernova is moving at the speed of light. How do we see the neutrinos first?
	...

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