Fermi satellite detects gamma-rays from exploding novae

This picture is an artist's conception of the explosion of V407 Cygni. 

It shows the white dwarf exploding inside the outer layers of its nearby companion star. 

Credit: Photo by: David A. Hardy /astroart.org

The Universe is home to a variety of exotic objects and beautiful phenomena, some of which can generate almost inconceivable amounts of energy.

ASU Regents' Professor Sumner Starrfield is part of a team that used the Large Area Telescope (LAT) onboard NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope satellite to discover very high energy gamma rays (the most energetic form of light) being emitted by an exploding star.

Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope satellite

The surprising discovery dispels the long-held idea that classical nova explosions are not powerful enough to produce such high-energy radiation.

In March 2010, scientists using the LAT reported a surprising discovery: detection of gamma rays that appeared to come from a nova, V407 Cygni.

The LAT, in orbit around the Earth, views ∼20% of the sky instantaneously and the entire sky every three hours.

It is the most sensitive gamma-ray space telescope ever flown.

A nova is observed as a sudden, short-lived rapid increase in the brightness of an otherwise inconspicuous star.

It results from runaway thermonuclear explosions that typically take place in a binary system on the surface of a white dwarf fueled by mass from a companion star.

The outburst occurs when a white dwarf erupts in an enormous thermonuclear explosion.

The explosion is equivalent to about 100,000 times the energy that the sun gives off every year. Unlike supernovas, novae do not result in the destruction of their stars.

Although novae produce bright optical events, they had not previously been considered as potential sources of high energy gamma rays since they are not predicted to accelerate particles to the required energies (very nearly the speed of light).

Few cosmic marvels can accelerate particles to the energies required to generate gamma rays, billions of times more energetic than the type of light visible to our eyes.

Researchers had expected and seen X-rays from the resulting waves of expanding gas in prior novae.

The finding overturned the notion that novae explosions lack the power to emit such high-energy radiation.