Question: What type of energy is released from a supernova?

Ry Cutter answered on 8 Nov 2017:

This is pretty big question, strap in for a lot of science!
A star is a big ball of gas under a lot of pressure from gravity. This pressure is matched by a process called fusion, the fusion process pushes against the force of gravity to stop the star collapsing. When a star runs out of fuel it can no longer fight the force of gravity which makes it collapse… very very quickly!
This means as the star gets smaller and smaller the pressure inside gets higher and higher. This causes runaway fusion creating heavy elements and a lot of fighting force against the crushing gravity. Eventually the pushing force becomes so much the (now tiny) star explodes, it goes supernova!
This can be explained as a conversion of Gravitational energy. The energy caused by the star being squished is converted into two main types of energy. One is light. Energy released as light particles, we use these light particles to see the supernova and tell what chemicals are made and how hot it is.
The second type of energy is called kinetic energy. This is the energy caused by movement of matter. It moves slower than light, but can be described as the shockwave. It blows all the matter into away so a new star has a chance to be created.

Fantastic question, it’s quite hard to know if everything I’ve said makes sense. If you
have any other questions I’d love to hear them!

Ryan