Alex Filippenko (B.A. physics, 1979, U.C. As a result of this breakthrough discovery, all team members earned the 2007 Gruber Cosmology Prize and the 2015 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. The team leaders also received the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics.
What did Alex Filippenko discover?
Alex Filippenko
Born
Alexei Vladimir Filippenko July 25, 1958 Oakland, California, United States
Education
University of California, Santa Barbara (B.A. 1979) California Institute of Technology (Ph.D. 1984)
Known for
Studies of supernovae, active galaxies, black holes, accelerating expansion of the Universe
Where was Alex Filippenko born?
Oakland, CA
What surprise about the universe did Alex Filippenko and other astronomers discover in 1998 using the Keck telescopes?
During his astronomy talk, “Dark Energy and the Runaway Universe,” Filippenko revealed that the most recent data from Keck Observatory and the Hubble Space Telescope yielded an additional surprise – the current rate of expansion is even faster than expected, perhaps showing that dark energy is growing stronger or …
What does Dr Filippenko’s research using Type 1a supernovae suggest about the expansion of the universe?
Type Ia supernovae as standard candles In the 1990s, two teams (both of them included Filippenko) used Type Ia supernovae to determine the distances to galaxies, compared distance with velocity and discovered that the universe is expanding faster and faster, rather than slowing down as expected.
What is an exploded star called?
supernova, plural supernovae or supernovas, any of a class of violently exploding stars whose luminosity after eruption suddenly increases many millions of times its normal level.
What is the importance of Type 1a supernovae in determining distances?
Type Ia supernovae are incredibly powerful tools for determining distances in our universe. Because these supernovae are formed by white dwarfs that explode when they reach a uniform accreted mass, the supernova peak luminosity is thought to be very consistent.
What is a Hypernova explosion?
A hypernova (alternatively called a collapsar) is a very energetic supernova thought to result from an extreme core-collapse scenario. In this case a massive star (>30 solar masses) collapses to form a rotating black hole emitting twin energetic jets and surrounded by an accretion disk.
What is a dying sun called?
The immensely high pressures and temperatures in its interior will slacken. The sun will shrink down to become a dying ember of a star, known as a white dwarf, only a little larger than Earth.
What is stellar parallax used for?
Astronomers estimate the distance of nearby objects in space by using a method called stellar parallax, or trigonometric parallax. Simply put, they measure a star’s apparent movement against the background of more distant stars as Earth revolves around the sun.
VIDEO
