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Light from a radioactive metal forged inside a supernova blast could prompt a rethink of how some star explosions occur.

The supernova SN 2014J is located 11.4 million light-years from Earth in the galaxy M82. Astronomers used the European Space Agency’s International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (INTEGRAL) spacecraft to examine the star explosion’s light spectrum in the gamma-ray bands and saw elements that shouldn’t have been there — suggesting that widely accepted models of how such events happen might be incomplete.

Scientists with the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany made the supernova discovery. [More Photos of Supernova SN 2014J]

A strange supernova

SN 2014J is a type Ia supernova. Type Ia supernovas occur in binary systems with two stars in orbits so close that the stars exchange mass. As the more massive star of the pair ages it evolves into a white dwarf, a star that is the size of Earth but has up to 1.4 times the mass of the sun. The companion star’s outer envelope gets pulled to the tiny, but very dense, dwarf’s surface. [How to Make A Supernova – Feed A Dwarf (Video)]

Over time, the gas piles up on the white dwarf until enough pressure and heat build up and ignite fusion reactions. The hydrogen becomes helium, and then the helium goes through the “triple alpha” process, fusing into carbon and oxygen. Since the fusion is happening very quickly and the gravity of the white dwarf is so large, there’s not enough time for the gas to expand and the stuff on the white dwarf surface explodes. The explosion is so powerful that it disrupts the white dwarf’s interior, obliterating it and seeding the rest of the universe with heavy elements.

The two images at left and center show the central portions of galaxy M82 prior to the supernova explosion. The right image shows supernova SN2014J taken by the FLITECAM instrument on the SOFIA observatory on February 20, 2014.

What the Max Planck team saw was a gamma-ray signature of nickel-56, a radioactive isotope of the metal that emits gamma rays as it decays into cobalt-56. It has a half-life of only about six days, but the gamma rays were still visible 15 days after the supernova blew up.

“We were observing it and after about three weeks most of nickel-56 would have decayed,” said Roland Diehl, lead author of the study. “The nickel-56 would be cobalt. But we saw the gamma-ray line… Some of our colleagues said that can’t be true.”

A helium belt?

The spectral line was also narrow and sharp, when it should have been wider and more diffuse – the result of moving toward the observers along the line of sight in the wake of the explosion. The blast should have also been relatively symmetrical. But it wasn’t.

That led Diehl and his colleagues to think there had to be a “belt” of helium around the white dwarf’s equator, which would account for the supernova’s shape. Seeing the nickel could be explained if the view was pole-on, so that the helium fusing into other elements such as carbon and oxygen wouldn’t block the light from the nickel.

The hypotheses in Diehl’s study also depend on the accretion of mass being relatively fast. Too slow and the white dwarf turns into either a more massive dwarf or a neutron star. On top of that, any gas that reaches the surface of a white dwarf tends to “flatten out” and cover the surface evenly because the gravity is so strong.

The next question is where the helium came from. There are two possible sources. One is a companion star, but most stars don’t have a lot of helium in their outer envelopes unless they are rather massive to begin with.

“Usually stars with bigger [helium] cores evolve faster, so the star with the bigger core should die first,” said Alexander Heger, a professor of physics at Monash University in Australia, in an email to Space.com. “The only way out would be to have a system with more than one phase of mass transfer, i.e., the star that is now the less massive white dwarf initially was the more massive star but by the time it died it had transferred a lot of mass to the companion. Such models and details of mass transfer and ejection from the system are still quite uncertain.”

Alternate theories

The other possibility is a helium white dwarf, orbiting close enough to a companion white dwarf that it nearly grazes it.

Helium white dwarfs are hard to create because a star that could become one on its own would have a low mass, on the order of 0.6 times the mass of Earth’s sun, said Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz, a professor of astronomy at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Such stars would take so long to become white dwarfs that the universe hasn’t been around long enough for them to form.

Ramirez-Ruiz, who was not involved in Diehl’s research, said that’s why the traditional model of type Ia supernovas needs tweaking. To get the helium there is probably some kind of mass exchange between the two stars in a binary system as well as between the remaining aged star and white dwarf, and even between two white dwarf stars.

Diehl’s observations, he said, are the first time anyone has seen clear evidence of that kind of supernova, as well as the nickel.

The nickel is important, because it shows the disruption at the center of the white dwarf, evidence for a “double detonation” model. In that scenario, the explosive fusion of the helium on the white dwarf surface produces a kind of focused shockwave that triggers yet other fusion reactions inside the dwarf, leading to the production of radioactive nickel.

“It’s really forced us to revisit the old models,” Ramirez-Ruiz said.

Their research is detailed in the Aug. 1 issue of the journal Science.

You can follow Space.com on Twitter @Spacedotcom. We’re also on Facebook & Google+. Original story on Space.com.

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As the granddaughter of an Italian woman who perhaps wore the label a bit too seriously, Sunday dinners were the rule. “Colorful” doesn’t begin to describe those occasions, where I learned how to set a table AND curse under my breath in another language. While the memory presents the exact opposite of the Norman Rockwell idea of a family dinner, I remember them happily. Even when, as a chronically shy child, the evening was spent hiding underneath the safety of the damask tablecloth-draped table. To this day, I only remember certain relatives by their shins and shoes.

Though a long-forgotten grudge put a premature stop to that tradition, the idea of gathering family and friends to share a Sunday meal has seemingly fallen out of favor on the whole. Even if you’re not the self-proclaimed matriarch of a lovingly dysfunctional family, these dinners need to make a comeback. It doesn’t have to be elaborate, limited to family or even that formal. Whether you’re entertaining two or twenty with cocktails, potluck or an all-out meal, here’s the argument for bringing back this tradition.

Time really does fly — it’s already August! Summer may be slipping away from us, but we still have a really hot month and some great Netflix titles to look forward to. So get ready to blast that air conditioning and hunker down.

Here’s what’s new on Netflix in August.

TV Shows:
“The Killing: Season 4,” Aug. 1
“Haven: Season 4,” available Aug. 12
“Low Winter Sun: Season 1,” available Aug. 12
“BoJack Horseman: Season 1,” available Aug. 22
“Parenthood: Season 5,” available Aug. 25
“Once Upon a Time: Season 3,” available Aug. 29
“Revenge: Season 4,” available Aug. 29

Movies:
“Airbud,” available Aug. 1
“Airbud: Golden Retriever,” available Aug. 1
“D2: The Mighty Ducks,” available Aug. 1
“Ella Enchanted,” available Aug. 1
“Evita,” available Aug. 1
“Face/Off,” available Aug. 1
“Freaky Friday,” available Aug. 1
“Goodbye World,” available Aug. 1
“Harlock: Space Pirate,” available Aug. 1
“Kinky Boots,” available Aug. 1
“Mad Max,” available Aug. 1
“Mean Creek,” available Aug. 1
“Prefontaine,” available Aug. 1
“Red Dawn,” available Aug. 1
“Rocky,” available Aug. 1
“Rocky II,” available Aug. 1
“Rocky III,” available Aug. 1
“Rocky IV,” available Aug. 1
“Rocky V,” available Aug. 1
“Rounders,” available Aug. 1
“Sabrina,” available Aug. 1
“Saints and Soldiers,” available Aug. 1
“Shooter,” available Aug. 1
“Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow,” available Aug 1
“Spark: A Burning Man Story,” available Aug. 1
“Spice World,” available Aug 1
“Switchfoot: Fading West,” available Aug. 1
“The Birdcage,” available Aug. 1
“The Cable Guy,” available Aug. 1
“The Gabby Douglas Story,” available Aug. 1
“The Mighty Ducks,” available Aug. 1
“Turner and Hooch,” available Aug. 1
“Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea,” available Aug. 1
“Justin Bieber’s Believe,” available Aug. 6
“Cosmos: A Space-Time Odyssey,” available Aug. 7
“Nymphomaniac: Volume I,” available Aug. 7
“Nymphomaniac: Volume II,” available Aug. 7
“Stage Fright,” available Aug. 7
“Kill Zombie!,” available Aug. 12
“The Nut Job,” available Aug. 13
“Bad Ass 2: Bad Asses,” available Aug. 14
“Great Expectations,” available Aug. 15
“Mission Blue,” available Aug. 15
“Dead Silence,” available Aug. 16
“Thanks for Sharing,” available Aug. 18
“From Dusk Till Dawn: Season 1,” available Aug. 19
“Dhoom: 3,” available Aug. 20
“Barbershop 2: Back in Business,” available Aug. 26
“The Motel Life,” available Aug. 26

ALBANY — Gov. Cuomo has lawyered up in response to the growing scandal over the way he handled his anti-corruption commission, the Daily News has learned.

Counterfeit goods are imitations — products that are made or sold under someone else’s name and without that company’s permission. Counterfeit goods can include a wide range of industries, from apparel to medication to car parts to electronics. Particularly hot items include: computers, shoes, personal care products, clothes and accessories, jewelry, handbags and wallets.

Counterfeit goods are a huge business throughout the world. According to the International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition, during fiscal year 2013, the Department of Homeland Security seized over $1.7 billion of counterfeit goods at U.S. borders. Internationally, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has estimated that counterfeit goods may cost the global economy up to $250 billion a year.

But there are steps that businesses can take to avoid losing money to counterfeit goods.

Register Your Trademarks

Registration of trademarks is an important step in protecting your brands. Federal registration allows you to enforce your trademarks anywhere in the United States and provides constructive notice to the public of your claim of ownership of the marks. Federal registration also gives you access to federal courts.

But don’t forget to register your trademarks in all countries in which you do business — both manufacturing and sales. Foreign registration provides additional rights and can help prevent the exportation of counterfeit goods that include your trademarks.

Register Your Trademarks With Customs Agencies

Another critical — but sometimes overlooked step — is to register your trademarks with the customs agencies in the United States and other countries in which you do business. So, for example, the U.S. Department of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) provides an Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Enforcement program that helps stop the flow of counterfeit goods into the United States. The CBP will actively monitor shipments and prevent the importation/exportation of counterfeit goods based upon the information provided in the registration.

Police Your Products And Pursue Counterfeiters

Just protecting your intellectual property rights is not sufficient. You then have to take all of the necessary steps to enforce your rights.

Periodically monitor the sales of goods — both online and by retailers — to verify that the products being sold are, in fact, genuine products. Three simple factors to examine include the price, the packaging, and the location where the product is being sold.

If you find counterfeit goods, take the appropriate legal steps to stop the counterfeiters. This could be as simple as sending a cease and desist letter or could require you to pursue civil litigation. An important part of enforcement is taking immediate action. Delaying litigation could hurt your ability to seek injunctive relief and, if unreasonable, could prevent you from filing a lawsuit.

Use Technology

Technology is becoming an important tool in protecting your goods from being counterfeited.

Technology can be used within the product itself. In clothing, for example, you could add a partially invisible thread that creates a brand-specific pattern that is visible only under certain lighting. You could similarly use a hologram security image or a company-specific color in plastic.

A German company, Bagjack, is using RFID tags to protect its messenger bags. These tags are then scanned as they leave the manufacturing site in an effort to track the bags downstream.

Modifying the goods themselves may be too expensive for you. Nevertheless, you can still use technology to fight counterfeiting. There are apps that you can use to share and track counterfeit goods (uFaker) or provide location information for potential counterfeit goods (Black Market Billions).

Educate Consumers

In order to prevent consumers from buying counterfeit goods, you must provide them with the information necessary to make educated purchases. Provide information through websites, such as The Counterfeit Report, to identify places that sell counterfeit goods and to provide a list of authorized dealers. Tell consumers how to identify and report counterfeit goods.

Counterfeit goods can cost your company both money and its reputation. Take a few simple steps to protect your brand and to prevent your customers from purchasing fake products.