Blow Up

Some very cool footage of a virtual experiment done by the University of Chicago this week. (Warning: Movie is processor intensive)

Story from the Sun-Times below, a more detailed explanation can be found here:

Star 'blown up' by U. of C. team

March 23, 2007

BY DAVE NEWBART Staff Reporter

As bright orange and red flames engulf a star in outer space, it looks like something out of the movie "Star Wars.''

But it's in fact a complicated research project unveiled Thursday by researchers at the University of Chicago. Instead of blowing up the Death Star, these scientists "blew up'' a so-called White Dwarf Star -- on a computer -- to help learn more about a mysterious force known as "dark energy.''

The mystery of dark energy

The project, presented at a conference in California of the world's top space physicists, is the first ever to simulate in 3-D how a star explodes in graphic detail. It took software running on two powerful supercomputers -- operating for the equivalent of 58,000 hours on a desktop computer -- to produce the virtual explosion.

The explosion, scientists hope, could shed light on dark energy, which is what researchers have called the force behind the universe's continued expansion. So far, scientists don't know why the universe is not only getting bigger but at a faster and faster pace. But they believe the energy produced when stars explode at the end of their lifetimes -- which can last tens of billions of years -- has something to do with it.

Scientists have been trying to use computers to simulate the natural explosion process of stars for years. But they haven't been entirely successful because no one has ever seen inside the stars, which are light years away in distant galaxies.

Harvard astronomist Robert Kirshner, who wrote a book on using the explosions to measure dark energy, wants to see U. of C.'s model developed more fully, but said so far their work "looks very promising.''

Beyond the Big Bang

Exploding stars are also believed to have created elements in the universe not created by the Big Bang, such as iron and carbon. The virtual explosions will help scientists learn more about that process, said Robert Fisher, a research scientist at the U. of C.'s Center for Astrophysical Thermonuclear Flashes.

In addition to the science, Fisher admits it's fun to work on blowing something up that in real life is the size of the Earth and which would reach temperatures in the billions of degrees.

"It's like when you were a little kid, you want to know what happens when you set off a firecracker,'' he said. "This is just really a big firecracker.''