Scientific Colloquium
February 6, 2009


"Fountains from Exploding Stars"

Every few weeks, somewhere in our Galaxy a star explodes.  All massive
stars end their lives as supernovae.  Low-mass stars become white
dwarfs, which can experience novae and occasionally supernovae.
Since the stars that give rise to these eruptions are spherical, one
might expect the explosions to also be spherical.  Observations,
however, show that instead many stellar explosions launch narrow jets
of material that can accelerate particles to nearly the speed of
light.  Comparing these jets to the jets from protostars, black holes,
and interacting binary stars provides clues to how stellar eruptions
produce their surprisingly shaped outflows.

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