Death of a Star Unveils 13-Billion-Year Space Mystery

Experts said a large, violent explosion in space could be the answer to a mystery that has lingered over our galaxy for 13 billion years.

Astronomers said the most likely explanation for the unique composition of another star in our Milky Way is an altogether new sort of massive explosion called scientifically as a "magnetorotational hypernova."

They said the blast came from an unknown source and would have been around 10 times more intense than a conventional supernova.

That star is fascinating in part because it contains significantly more metals, such as gold and uranium, than other stars of comparable age. Normally, those materials would be predicted to develop as a result of neutron star mergers, but that does not account for the abundance of metals.

Instead, the scientists argue that a previously unknown type of explosive collapse can occur in a very early star, supplying all of the neutrons required for those metals.

According to the experts, the explosion would have been enhanced by the star spinning swiftly and having a strong magnetic field.

Building a Picture of the First Stars

Experts claim the explosion would have occurred in the early days of the universe, just a billion years after the Big Bang.

The new type of explosion is described in a groundbreaking research published today in Nature, titled "r-Process elements from magnetorotational hypernovae."

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"The extra amounts of these elements had to come from somewhere," said Chiaki Kobayashi from the University of Hertfordshire per Ladbible.

"We now find the observational evidence for the first time directly indicating that there was a different kind of hypernova producing all stable elements in the periodic table at once - a core-collapse explosion of a fast-spinning strongly-magnetized massive star. It is the only thing that explains the results," she said in a statement from the Australian National University (ANU).

Discovering a Mysterious Star

Despite the enormous number of heavier metals, scientists discovered that the star is otherwise devoid of metals, which adds to the mystery of its composition. The star is exceedingly old, astronomers describe it as primitive, and its scientific name is "SMSS J200322.54-114203.3."

David Yong, an Australian National University scientist who led the study, said per ABC.net.au that the star they're looking at has an iron-to-hydrogen ratio around 3000 times slower than the Sun. It denotes a very rare type of star known as an exceedingly metal-poor star.

It is even unusual since it includes far larger than expected concentrations of some heavier elements, making it a true needle in a haystack.

Hypernovae have been known to scientists since the 1990s. The new burst, however, is the first known to spin swiftly and have such intense magnetic forces.

Dr. Yong described the star's death as "explosive." They determined that J200322.54-114203.3 originated 13 billion years ago from a chemical soup containing the remnants of this sort of hypernova. This phenomenon has never been discovered before.

The star is located in the Milky Way's halo and is roughly 7,500 light-years away from us. It was studied with a set of telescopes to determine its metal-poor composition before providing additional information to corroborate that it was evidence of "magnetorotational hypernovae."