catdynamics | June 8, 2006
Spitzer has an interesting press release...
Dusty SN2003gd
The Spitzer infrared space observatory recently did followup imaging of a type II supernova in the nearby spiral galaxy M74.
Type II supernovae occur when a short lived massive star (> 8 times the mass of the Sun, or so) exhaust the fusionable fuel in their core, and the core collapses to a neutron star, with the outer layers of the star blown off in a very spectacular explosion.
To cut a long story short, the supernova remnant is full of hot dust, when imaged in the infrared.
paper on Science Express
This is a step to…