News from the Physics Department

Science is exciting! These pages keep you up to date on what is happening at the Physics Department: scientists report on research and campus life.

Obituary: Prof. Dr. Shawn Bishop (1971 - 2021)

2021-10-29 – The Physics Department mourns the untimely loss of Prof. Dr. Shawn Bishop. After a long and serious illness he passed away on 19 October 2021, just a few days before his 50th birthday.

Can supernovae cause extinctions!?

2016-11-22 – Recently, the research group of Prof. Shawn Bishop have for the first time ever identified supernova ash in the Earth’s microfossil record. They found out that our earth moved through – or rather was bombarded by – the remnants of a supernova explosion, starting about 2.7 million years and lasting for about a million years. Now a Canadian radio programme has aired an extensive inteview with Shawn Bishop, which is available online. Additionally, a radio essay featuring this work via the “Academic Minute” has been broadcast in the US, and is also available online.

Time-resolved detection of a supernova signal in Earth’s microfossils

2016-08-10 – Physicists from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have succeeded in detecting a time-resolved supernova signal in the Earth’s microfossil record. As the group of Prof. Shawn Bishop could show, the supernova signal was first detectable at a time starting about 2.7 Million years ago. According to the researcher’s analyses, our solar system spent one Million years to transit trough the remnants of a supernova.

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