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This neutrino burst was observed in the huge neutrino detectors at Kamiokande in Japan and at Fairport, Ohio, in the USA. lasting for a period of just 12 seconds, and confirming the computer simulations that indicated they should diffuse through the dense core relatively slowly. From the average energy and the number of 'hits' by the neutrinos in the detectors, it was possible to estimate that the energy released by SN1987 amounted to 2-3 x 1053 ergs.
This is equal to the calculated gravitational binding energy that would be released by the collapse of a core of about 1.5 solar masses to a neutron star. Thus SN1987A provided a remarkable confirmation of the general picture of neutron star formation developed over the previous fifty years.
Presently (2003) it is believed that when the core of a collapsing star implodes with sufficient violence to form a mass of 'hot' neutrons at a temperature and pressure exceeding 10 billion degrees and 100 trillion (1014) g/cm3, huge numbers of neutrinos are formed that deposit a shock wave of energy into the envelope--which is blasted away in a supernova explosion. And thus is the Urantia Papers' assertion fulfilled:
"In large suns when hydrogen is exhausted and gravity contraction ensures, and such a body is not sufficiently opaque to retain the internal pressure of support for the outer gas regions, then a sudden collapse occurs. The gravity-electric changes give origin to vast quantities of tiny particles devoid of electric potential, and such particles readily escape from the solar interior thus bringing about the collapse of a gigantic sun within a few days." (P. 464)
Who dunit? Paring away the alternatives
Referring to our three alternatives to explain how the reference to the role of the tiny uncharged particles in supernova explosions got to be in the Urantia Papers, our investigation showed that Zwicky is unlikely to have been the source as he firmly believed X-rays, not neutrinos, accounted for the postulated 10% mass loss during the death of the star.
Remembering that neutron stars were not demonstrated to exist until 1967, that some of the biggest names in physics and astronomy were totally opposed to the concept of collapsing stars (Einstein, Eddington), and that, well into the 1960's, the majority of astronomers (including Gamow) assumed that massive stars shed their bulk piecemeal prior to retiring respectably as white dwarfs, a process for which neutrino loss is unnecessary, it appears that it would have been a preposterous notion to attempt to support the reality of a revelation by means of speculation about neutron star at any time prior to the 1960's.
If, however, it is assumed that, on what would have needed to be the expert advice of a knowledgeable but reckless astrophysicist, Dr Sadler wrote the page 464 material into the Urantia papers subsequent to the concepts on neutrinos appearing in the Gamow et al. publications of the 1940's, then it becomes necessary to ask why was it not removed when that work lost any credibility.
That appears to leave the revelators themselves as the major (only?) suspects.
References
1. Asimov, Isaac, (1966) "The Neutrino" (Dobson Books Ltd., London)
2. Burbidge, E.M., G.R. Burbidge, W.A. Fowler, & F. Hoyle. (1957)
3. Morrison, Philip, (1962) Scientific American 207 (2) 90.
4. Novikov, I. (1990) "Black Holes and the Universe" (Cambridge University Press)
5. Overbye, Dennis (1991) "Lonely Hearts of the Cosmos." (HarperCollins)
6. Thorne, K.S. (1994) "Black holes and Time Warps: Einstein 's Outrageous Legacy" (Picador, London)
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