New laboratory measurements have probed what happens inside an exploding supernova. Three independent research teams have provided new and more accurate measurements of the half-life of 44Ti, a radioactive isotope of titanium produced in supernovae. Previous measurements had suggested a half-life of about 50 years, but with a large variation in values that was not well understood. Moreover, this half-life could not explain the large amount of 44Ti thought to exist in the remnant of the Casseopeia (Cas) A supernova, which exploded in our galaxy about 320 years ago. The improved measurements suggest that the half-life of 44Ti is longer, about 60 years, in better agreement with models of supernova nucleosynthesis.
The full article by Stan Woosley of Lick Observatory, University of California, Santa Cruz, US, and Roland Diehl, Max Planck Institute für Extraterrestrische Physik, Garching, Germany, appears in Physics World magazine (information).