NOIRLab - A New way To Annihilate A Star

Stars end their lives in a variety of ways. Low mass stars puff off their outer layers and settle down to become white dwarfs while massive stars end their lives in spectacular supernova explosions. A long hypothesized way for stars to end their lives by collisions of stars or stellar remnants in the densely packed area near a galaxy’s massive black hole. Andrew Levan recently found evidence of this new phenomena while following up a long gamma ray burst. In this podcast, Andrew Levan describes how a variety of telescopes provided the first evidence for this new way for a star to end its life.   Bios: Rob Sparks is in the Communications, Education and Engagement group at NSF’s NOIRLab in Tucson, Arizona. Andrew Levan is a professor at Radbound University in the Netherlands where he  studies astrophysical transients such as Gamma-ray bursts, supernovae, tidal disruption events and most recently the electromagnetic counterparts to gravitational wave sources.   Links:  NOIRLab Press Release: https://noirlab.edu/public/news/noirlab2319/ NOIRLab social media channels can be found at https://www.facebook.com/NOIRLabAstro https://twitter.com/NOIRLabAstro https://www.instagram.com/noirlabastro/ https://www.youtube.com/noirlabastro   We've added a new way to donate to 365 Days of Astronomy to support editing, hosting, and production costs.  Just visit: https://www.patreon.com/365DaysOfAstronomy and donate as much as you can! Share the podcast with your friends and send the Patreon link to them too!  Every bit helps! Thank you! ------------------------------------ Do go visit http://www.redbubble.com/people/CosmoQuestX/shop for cool Astronomy Cast and CosmoQuest t-shirts, coffee mugs and other awesomeness! http://cosmoquest.org/Donate This show is made possible through your donations.  Thank you! (Haven't donated? It's not too late! Just click!) ------------------------------------ The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by the Planetary Science Institute. http://www.psi.edu Visit us on the web at 365DaysOfAstronomy.org or email us at [email protected].