Dr Joanne Bibby

Dr Joanne Bibby, researcher and lecturer at UCLan unravels the mysteries of star death.

'Supernovae are one of the most energetic cosmic explosions in the Universe and are often the result of a massive star undergoing core-collapse at the end of its life.

Supernovae come in many different flavours (just like ice cream) and show different chemical elements when they explode but we have very few cases where we know exactly what kind of star exploded, but we have theories.

I will explain the different supernova classifications and describe the techniques we use to identify probable progenitors (the star that explodes) of such events in the hope that we can confirm theories from observations.'