Hi folks!
As part of this week?s feature I discussed a recently discovered Type Ia supernova that scientists claimed to be exhibiting some peculiar behavior. The research team working on the project later concluded that this Type Ia supernova was a new kind of Type Ia supernova. I included it in the article as a way of showing how known physical laws can produce some interesting and often unpredictable results.
As at least one poster in these forums has suggested that the discovery of this new class of supernova will have a significant impact on the ?Standard Model,? I think it only fair that I post a reply that I received from Peter Nugent who worked on the project. While the discovery is certainly surprising, Nugent says that the discovery is not really outside of the realms of known physical laws, and should be considered "business as usual."
?This wasn't a rock-solid physical law, even Chandrasekhar himself realized that rotation could increase this mass limit he found,? says Nugent. ?The thing is that this limit has been so successful in improving our understanding of astronomy in so many different areas, and for such a long time, that it's just one of those things you take as fact after a while. But our observations are always improving so we always push the theory... it took a while, but we finally pushed this one.?
So, there you have it. You can make what you will of the new discovery, the above response and what it all means in regard to current scientific understanding.
RR
