Supernova 1987A

Supernova 1987A in the Large Magellanic Cloud is the brightest supernova to be observed since SN1604 (Kepler).  Observations taken with almost every type of telescope, on the ground and in space, have yielded a rich story of the evolution of the explosion debris and its interaction with its circumstellar environment.  It is a unique laboratory of almost all kinds of physics, at temperatures ranging from 109 K to 20 K and densities ranging from 1015 to 10-23 g cm-3.  After a brief review of the physics of SN1987A, I'll describe what we are learning from our recent observations with the Hubble Space Telescope and the newly commissioned Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA).  I'll conclude with a summary of the outstanding mysteries of SN1987A and the prospects for unraveling them.

Speaker: Richard McCray, UC Berkeley