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> Explosions of stars in the universe are almost always spherical in shape Are they? What about quasars and supernovas? > its shape—similar to that of an extr
by nobrains 4y ago
> Explosions of stars in the universe are almost always spherical in shape
Are they? What about quasars and supernovas?
> its shape—similar to that of an extremely flat disk—challenges everything we know about explosions in space.
It does? What if Saturn (imagine a Saturn with a much smaller sphere and much larger rings) exploded? It would look like a relatively flat explosion, no?
- andrewflnr 4y agoSupernovae are pretty much spherical, despite what fanciful artist representations might have implied, and even if their dust clouds aren't. I'm actually not sure where the shapes of supernova nebulas come from, but I bet it's a combination of very small deviations from sphericity and interactions with surrounding gas. Quasars just aren't explosions, they're a continuous emission of energy from matter going inwards towards a black hole. Saturn can't explode, not even the spherical part, which is just hydrogen that's already too small for fusion. The only non-spherical part is just a kajillion tiny chunks of ice, and they total a tiny fraction of Saturn's mass. If they affected the shape of an explosion, they would slow it down around the equator, not expand it into a disk. But more likely they would just be annihilated. Any amount of energy big enough to destroy Saturn won't even notice some dust in the way, which is kind of why most explosions are spherical: not much can stop it in any direction (besides which most things in space start out spherical anyway).