For the first time, scientists have filmed the violent conclusion of the life of a red supergiant star, capturing its death throes as it exploded into a type II supernova.
Northwestern University and the University of California, Berkeley reseachers uploaded "Final Moments. I. Precursor Emission, Envelope Inflation, and Enhanced Mass Loss Preceding the Luminous Type II Supernova 2020tlf" in The Astrophysical Journal. They presented the findings of a transient survey conducted by the Young Supernova Experiment (YSE) that studied a red supergiant dubbed SN 2020tlf throughout its last 130 days.
Red Supergiant Star's 'Dying' Moments Before Exploding As A Supernova
According to a news release, the discovered red supergiant, SN 2020tlf, was initially spotted by the University of Hawaii Institute for AstronomyPan-STARRS on Maui in the summer of 2020 owing to the quantity of light emitting from the red supergiant. The Low-Resolution Imaging Spectrometer at the W.M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea, Hawai'i, was utilized for this.
The star, which is now a supernova, was 10 times more massive than the sun and was located in the NGC 5731 galaxy, roughly 120 million light-years distant from Earth.
The crew was able to see the star's last decline and then catch the massive flare as it went supernova with plenty of notice. Witnessing the process of a huge star converting into a supernova explosion, on the other hand, was a rare occurrence.
Experts, per WJCL, believed that red supergiants die quietly, fading for a long time before becoming supernovas. However, the team claims to have discovered strong radiation from the detected red supergiant a year before it died. The radioactivity indicates major changes in its internal structure that resulted in a dramatic evacuation of gas right before it collapsed.
"It's like watching a ticking time bomb. We've never confirmed such violent activity in a dying red supergiant star where we see it produce such a luminous emission, then collapse and combust, until now," senior author Raffaella Margutti said per Phys.org.
Until today, researchers had never documented such intense activity in a dying red supergiant star, where people watch it emit a bright light, then collapse and burn.
According to follow-up measurements obtained by Forbes, the red supergiant star that triggered SN 2020tlf was nearly 10 times more massive than the Sun.
Latest Breakthrough Discovery
Wynn Jacobson-Galán, the study's lead author, said per Independent that their most recent research is a major step forward in our knowledge of what big stars do just before they die.
More occurrences like SN 2020tlf will have a significant influence on how researchers characterize the final months of stellar development, Jacobson-Galán added. According to the lead author, this would bring together observers and theorists to unravel the enigma of how giant stars spend their dying moments.
The goal is to look for brilliant emission from red supergiants once more, to help unravel the enigma of what big stars do in their dying moments-and the Vera Rubin Observatory's all-sky survey camera, which is set to go live later this year, could assist.
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