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In the time it takes to blink, a star begins to die.

The end comes not in a whimper but rather in a sound wave so powerful that it destroys the inner core of a star.

Though minuscule fractions of time may not mean much in the life cycle of a star — in death, every millionth of a second is critical.

Until recently, scientists have been limited in explaining the exact mechanism that begins the process of a star going supernova.

Prevailing models attributing collapse because of neutrinos or convection processes have proved inadequate to fully account for the energy needed to start an explosion.

The problem of understanding supernovae explosions has been an interest of University of Arizona astronomy professor Adam Burrows for about 20 years.

Along with his team, a collection of colleagues from Germany's Max Plank Institute, Hebrew University and the UA's Steward Observatory, Burrows has added a few more steps, say about a million more, to give a more detailed picture of star death.

By examining a longer time frame than in previous models, Burrows and his team are able to mimic the turbulent atmospheric conditions within a dying star's core. Other studies focused on the collapse of white dwarfs into neutron stars as the basis for their models.

What Burrows found trumps current theories on star death.

As a star begins the explosion that will eventually destroy it, core particles begin to condense, becoming more compact as internal pressure increases, eventually halting the explosion.

This process, which is called bounce, has confounded scientists' search for an explanation.

Burrows' data challenge traditional theories by placing a specific and powerful sound wave as the agent of explosion.

The model shows that the oscillations within the core of the star are so strong that they eventually turn into sound waves, essentially restarting the halted explosion.

Registering at an audible frequency, the sound wave has been consistently found, through the computer model, to be equivalent to the F-note above middle C, Burrows said.

The resulting force from the sound wave that drives the explosion has been estimated at roughly the equivalent of 10 percent of the total energy the sun will radiate during its lifetime, Burrows said.

A supernova explosion not only marks the end of a star's life. but also contributes to the flow of matter in the universe that gives life — creating the basic materials that make up the planets and the terrestrial beings.

The unprecedented notion of a sound-wave-generated blast is a revolutionary idea, Burrows said.

However, the work is still in its infancy, and even Burrows is approaching his conclusions with caution.

"At the minimum, this warrants further study by other groups," Burrows said.

Professor John Wheeler of the University of Texas-Austin, who is president-elect of the American Astronomical Society, has been studying the supernova phenomenon for the past 40 years and says that Burrows is on the right track, but he agrees more research is needed.

"We have similar ideas but technically different perspectives in approaching this," Wheeler said.

While Burrows' discovery focuses on sound waves' role in core collapse, Wheeler contends that a star's magnetic fields must also be accounted for in the model for a more accurate picture.

"It's not the last word but the first word in a new way of thinking," Wheeler said of Burrows' work.

Burrows' findings will be published in The Astrophysical Journal this April.