Space Show

Jumping Jehoshaphat! No sooner had we absorbed the news that a wave of neutrinos had swept across the Earth from the nearby supernova than other scientists reported that minute diamonds are raining down from space all the time. Any week that contains two such discoveries is surely a gala week.

First the neutrinos. Astronomers are in a tizzy (and so are we) over the supernova, or exploding star, that was discovered three weeks ago--the closest supernova to Earth in nearly four centuries. (Close is a relative term, you understand. The supernova exploded some 900 quadrillion miles away, and its light and neutrinos took more than 150,000 years to get here.)

Because there have been no nearby supernovae since 1604, they have never been studied with modern scientific instruments and have remained mysterious phenomena. But in the last few decades scientists have developed a theory of supernovae based on the general idea that they are dying stars that explode in one last gasp, which sends heavy elements spewing into the universe--where, among other things, they form the basis for all of us.

While the star is collapsing, the theorists theorized, it also forms subatomic neutrinos, which get ejected in the final terrible explosion along with the heavier elements and the light, which we see as the explosion.

Voila! The detection of a burst of neutrinos on Earth just as the supernova was being observed provides powerful confirming evidence in support of the supernova theory.

So does the discovery of the tiny diamonds, billions of which would fit on the head of a pin (a nice twist on the medieval question about how many angels would fit there). Scientists believe that these diamonds were also formed in long-ago supernovae. When our solar system was formed, the diamonds were trapped in meteorites, which is how they get to Earth. By examining these diamonds, scientists expect to find traces of every element that was formed when the supernova occurred.

These are heady days indeed for supernovaists and for hangers-on such as ourselves who have been waiting for this for 400 years and who now hang on every word from the supernova in the sky with diamonds.