Physicists often turn to the Rayleigh-Taylor instability to explain why fluid structures form in plasmas, but that may not be the full story when it comes to the ring of hydrogen clumps around supernova 1987A, research suggests.
It looks like the same mechanism that breaks up airplane contrails might be at play in forming the clumps of hydrogen gas that ring the remnant of supernova 1987A.
"The fascinating part about this is that the same mechanism that breaks up airplane wakes could be in play here," said Michael Wadas, corresponding author of the study and a graduate student in mechanical engineering at the time of the work. Supernova 1987A is among the most famous stellar explosions because it's relatively close to Earth at 163,000 light years away, and its light reached Earth at a time when sophisticated observatories existed to witness its evolution. It is the first supernova visible to the naked eye since Kepler's supernova in 1604, making it an incredibly rare astrophysical event that has played an outsized role in shaping our understanding of stellar evolution.
"That's a big piece of why we think this is the Crow instability," said Eric Johnsen, U-M professor of mechanical engineering and senior author of the study. The study was supported by the Department of Energy, with computing resources provided by the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment
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