The plasma Z-pinch morphology of supernova 1987A and the implications for supernova remnants

Summary form only given. Supernova 1987A is the closest supernova event since the invention of the telescope. It was first seen in February 1987 in the nearby Magellanic cloud, a dwarf companion galaxy of the Milky Way, and only 169,000 light years from Earth. The Hubble images of the rings of SN 1987A are spectacular and unexpected. Conventional theory did not predict the presence of the three rings nor the pattern of bright "beads" in the equatorial ring of SN 1987A. The pattern of brightening is not explained by an expanding shock front into an earlier stellar "wind". The axial shape of SN 1987A is that of a planetary nebula. It seems that new concepts are required to explain supernovae and planetary nebulae. The new discipline of plasma cosmology provides a precise analog in the form of a Z-pinch plasma discharge. The phenomena match so accurately that the number of bright beads can be accounted for and their behavior predicted. If supernovae are a plasma discharge phenomenon, the theoretical conditions for forming neutron stars and other "super-condensed" objects is not fulfilled and plasma concepts must be introduced to explain pulsar remnants of supernovae