Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 30, 2026

Emission Spectroscopic Boundary Layer Investigation during Ablative Material Testing in Plasmatron
Published on: June 9, 2016
Circumstellar material in type Ia supernovae via sodium absorption features
A Sternberg1, A Gal-Yam, J D Simon
1Benoziyo Center for Astrophysics, Faculty of Physics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel. assaf.sternberg@weizmann.ac.il
Abstract:
Type Ia supernovae are key tools for measuring distances on a cosmic scale. They are generally thought to be the thermonuclear explosion of an accreting white dwarf in a close binary system. The nature of the mass donor is still uncertain. In the single-degenerate model it is a main-sequence star or an evolved star, whereas in the double-degenerate model it is another white dwarf. We show that the velocity structure of absorbing material along the line of sight to 35 type Ia supernovae tends to be blueshifted. These structures are likely signatures of gas outflows from the supernova progenitor systems. Thus, many type Ia supernovae in nearby spiral galaxies may originate in single-degenerate systems.
Related Concept Videos
Qualitative Analysis
For instance, group IV...
Atomic Emission Spectroscopy: Overview
Atomic Emission Spectroscopy: Interference
Detection of Black Holes
Their closest cousins are neutron stars, which are composed almost entirely of neutrons packed against each other, making them extremely dense. A neutron star has the same mass as the Sun but its diameter is only a few kilometers. Therefore, the escape velocity from their surface is close to the speed of light.
Not until the 1960s, when the first neutron...
Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy: Atomization Methods
Emission Spectra

