Scientists see a red super giant turning into a supernova for the first time

Despite the large number of stars in the sky, finding one of them is in the middle supernova It was still a very rare event. Now, astronomers catch The red giants before, during and after the supernova explosion for the first time, gathered Important new information about this dramatic event.

“This is a breakthrough in our understanding of what massive stars do just before they die,” said lead author Wayne Jacobson Gallan (UC Berkeley). “Direct detection of pre-supernova activity in red giant stars that has not previously been observed in ordinary type II supernovae. For the first time, we saw a red giant star explode!”

use Pan Star Telescope On Maui, Hawaii, scientists discovered a red giant star that disintegrated in the summer of 2020 thanks to the abundance of light it emits. Then in the fall when the supernova disappeared, the team caught a powerful flash using Hawaii Keck ObservatoryLow Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (LRIS). They also captured the supernova’s first spectrum, known as SN 2020tlf.

Observations suggest that the star probably released a large amount of dense stellar matter before the explosion. Previous observations have shown that the red giants were relatively quiet before the supernova occurred, so new data suggests that some may have changed their internal structure dramatically before the explosion. This can then cause turbulent gas to be released moments before collapsing.

SN 2020tlf is located in the galaxy NGC 5731, 120 million light years from Earth and has a mass ten times greater than the Sun. Stars turn into supernovas when they run out of fuel and collapse under their own gravity, triggering massive explosions of carbon fusion. For this to happen, it must be large enough (8 to 15 solar masses) or it will collapse into a white dwarf like our Sun eventually. Bigger than that and can collapse into files Black hole.

The discovery will now allow scientists to scan red giant stars for a similar type of glowing radiation that could indicate another supernova. “The discovery of more events like SN 2020tlf will profoundly influence how we define the final months of stellar evolution… in an effort to solve the mystery of how massive stars spend their last moments,” said Jacobson Gallan.

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