Experts had never caught a star of this type exploding instead of just fading out.
For years, scientists thought that the biggest stars do Universe, the red supergiants, died in a dwindling and silent way. But in 2020, astronomers Americans have witnessed just the opposite. One star red giant, 10 times more massive than our Sun, violently self-destructed.
“This is a breakthrough in our understanding of what stars massive make moments before dying. For the first time, we’ve seen a red supergiant star explode,” says researcher Wynn Jacobson-Galán, from the University of California at Berkeley (USA), one of the authors of the study on the star, published last Thursday (6/1) in the scientific journal The Astrophysical Journal, quoted by the American website CNET.
According to the study, the star SN2020tlf, located about 120 million light-years from Earth in the galaxy NGC 5731, took its last “sigh” for 130 days, until it exploded.
“It’s like watching a ticking time bomb”, says researcher Raffaella Margutti, from the Northwestern University (USA), the main author of the article, also cited by the American website.
The star’s very strong illumination indicated that it was not dormant or waning, as is often the case with red supergiants observed before death. SN2020tlf was very active as it deteriorated, likely releasing repressed gas with great vigor and altering its internal structure in some way, according to the researchers.
Then, “suddenly,” the star exploded in a supernova that filled the sky with light. “We have never confirmed such violent activity in a dying red supergiant star. We saw it produce a gigantic luminosity, collapse and burn”, comments Margutti, according to CNET.
The researchers made the revealing discovery by collecting data from the WM Keck observatory, in Hawaii (USA).
– .
