April 29, 2015

On the left, a common Supernova with no engine, on the right a Supernova with a strong engine that emits a gamma-ray burst, in the middle an intermediate case such as SN 2012ap (Image Bill Saxton, NRAO/AUI/NSF)

An article published in “Astrophysical Journal” describes the diskovery made by a group of astronomers led by Sayan Chakraborti of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). They studied a supernova called 2012ap (SN 2012ap) which is a missing link between ordinary ones and the ones that cause the emission of a gamma-ray burst.