Astronomers were the first to observe a supernova explosion marking the end of a red giant star. The incident was observed using two Hawaiian binoculars – the University of Hawaii with Pan-STARRS and the WMKeck Observatory in Maunakea – from the 130th day before the explosion.
This is a breakthrough in understanding what the stars do before they die. Pre-supernova activity in red giants has not yet been observed in type II supernovae. We first saw a red giant star explode!
Said Bynneley employee Wynn Jacobson-Galán, author of the study describing the incident. The article on the observation was published in the Astrophysical Journal.
The researchers were the first to capture the spectra of the intense flash associated with an explosion using Keck’s spectrometer. According to the data, the star was surrounded by a dense cloud of material from it at the time of the explosion, which it pushed out of itself last summer.
A star called SN 2020tlf is located in the galaxy NGC5731, about 120 million light-years away, and weighs ten times the Sun.
The observation revealed that the idea that the red giants were relatively calm before they exploded was wrong. High-energy flares have revealed that the interior of such stars is undergoing significant changes before it collapses.
Observing even more events like SN 2020tlf can dramatically expand our knowledge of stellar evolution. Observers and theorists could work together to learn about the last moments of giant star life
Jacobson-Galan pointed out.
(Phys.org)
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