There are many amazing facts about supernovae, but perhaps the most interesting one is that many of the chemical elements that exist in our bodies were created by such cosmic objects. On the other hand, the Big Bang event gave birth to hydrogen, the most widespread and simplest chemical element out there.
Australia has a new supercomputing system, and the world will soon be amazed by what it’s capable of. Scientists have used it to process the image of a supernova remnant in great detail, according to ScienceAlert.
G261.9+5.5 enters the cosmic stage
The world can now see a beautiful image of the supernova remnant (SNR) known as G261.9+5.5, which is located 10,000 to 15,000 light-years away from Earth:
Here is a brand new image by Australia’s brand new supercomputer, Setonix. Check out supernova remnant G261.9+5.5! Data from our #ASKAP radio telescope was processed on Setonix by the @CSIRO Science Data Processing team alongside the @PawseyCentre team. pic.twitter.com/pfRRupRYZU
— CSIRO_ATNF (@CSIRO_ATNF) August 8, 2022
Dr. Wasim Raja from the ASKAP team of CSIRO explained as Yahoo News quotes:
The speed at which we reproduced our current workflows is a good sign as we look to improve and optimise them to fully exploit Setonix’s capabilities,
Setonix’s large, shared memory will allow us to use more of our software features and further enhance the quality of our images. This means we will be able to unearth more from the ASKAP data,
We look forward to working together with colleagues at the Pawsey Centre, who were pivotal to this success, as we continue integrating the complete processing pipelines on Setonix.
You may have already guessed why they call it a supernova remnant. SRNs represent what’s left from supernova explosions. Not even those huge, energetic, and majestic balls of fire that we call stars can live forever. Sooner or later, they’ll burn up all their hydrogen fuel and unleash huge amounts of energy into space. After the supernova explodes, a dense core is what remains. If the star was exceptionally big, that core would ultimately become a black hole. Otherwise, it will result in a neutron star.
G261.9+5.5 is also about one million years old.
