Giant Dying Star Explodes as Scientists Watch in Real Time
owl writes:
https://lite.cnn.com/en/article/h_a6c9307a6c1df0d4cc9e84ee945f232c
Explosion of supergiant star captured by UH telescope | University of Hawaii System NewsThe death of a star is one of the most dramatic and violent events in space -- and astronomers had an unprecedented front-row seat to the explosive end of a stellar giant.
Ground-based telescopes provided the first real-time look at the death throes of a red supergiant star. While these aren't the brightest or most massive stars, they are the largest in terms of volume.
One popular red supergiant star is Betelgeuse, which has captured interest due to its irregular dimming. While it was predicted that Betelgeuse may go supernova, it's still around.
However, the star at the heart of this new research, located in the NGC 5731 galaxy about 120 million light-years away from Earth, was 10 times more massive than the sun before it exploded.
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For the first time, telescopes imaged the self-destruction and final death throes of a massive star.
A team of researchers used the UH Institute for Astronomy-operated Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) on Maui and W. M. Keck Observatory on Hawaii Island observe the red supergiant during its last 130 days leading up to its deadly detonation. The observations were part of their ongoing Young Supernova Experiment (YSE) transient survey.
"This is a breakthrough in our understanding of what massive stars do moments before they die," said Wynn Jacobson-Galan, a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow at University of California, Berkeley and lead author of the study. "Direct detection of pre-supernova activity in a red supergiant star has never been observed before in an ordinary Type II supernova. For the first time, we watched a red supergiant star explode!"
Source: https://www.hawaii.edu/news/2022/01/06/explosion-of-supergiant-star-captured-by-uh-telescope
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