:: OSEL.CZ :: - Finally! Astronomers have been observing the star's death and a supernova explosion for the first time

Finally! Astronomers have been observing the star’s death and a supernova explosion for the first time

When the red giant 10 Suns exploded as a SN 2020tlf supernova in the fall of 2020, scientists have had 130 days of detailed observations of its fatal convulsions. It is a fascinating breakthrough that shows that at least some of the red giants are not dying of reconciliation, as thought, but are throwing out matter wildly.

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Red giant in the last months of life. Credit: WM Keck Observatory / Adam Makarenko.

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It’s like the first time you get to a dream show. Astronomers won the jackpot and had the opportunity to literally watch live the red giant’s death, its fatal convulsions, and how it eventually exploded with a supernova explosion, in this case, of course, type II.

Wynn Jacobson-Galán. Credit: UC Berkeley.

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Wynn Jacobson-Galán of the University of California, Berkeley, and his colleagues used two systems in the Hawaiian Islands, the Pan-STARRS telescope at Haleakalā Observatory, Maui Island, and the Keck Observatory telescopes at the top of Mauna Kea in Hawaii. The observations were made as part of the Young Supernova Experiment (YSE) project. They watched the last 130 days of the red giant, which was ended by a devastating explosion.

As Jacobson-Galan does not hide, it is a breakthrough in our knowledge of the final fate of the massive stars. In a typical red giant type II supernova, we have never observed star activity just before an explosion and the detonation of the explosion itself. In the summer of 2020, the Pan-STARRS telescope first noticed a red giant flooding its surroundings with intense radiation. A few months later, during the fall of 2020, the star in question was erased from the sky by a monumental explosion.

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Teleskop Pan-STARRS. Kredit: Rob Ratkowski Photography / Haleakala Amateur Astronomers.

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The Jacobson-Galán team promptly detected an explosion flash and acquired the first spectral glow of the dramatic explosion, which was designated SN 2020tlf, using the Keck Observatory’s Low Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (LRIS) spectrometer. The data obtained show the presence of dense material near the dying star at the time of the explosion. Apparently this is material that the giant threw wildly during the summer. According to research leader Raffaella Margutti, it was like watching a ticking bomb. A wildly raging giant, intense glow, collapse and then an explosion of cosmic proportions.

The researchers then continued to observe the SN 2020tlf supernova after the explosion, using Keck Observatory’s DEep Imaging and Multi-Object Spectrograph (DEIMOS) and Near Infrared Echellette Spectrograph (NIRES) spectrographs. At the same time, they tracked the supernova into the past, in previous observations, when it was still a red giant in the galaxy NGC 5731, about 120 million light-years away, weighing about 10 Suns.

Prior to the research of Jacobson-Galán and his colleagues, the prevailing view was that the red giants were pensive before the explosion and did not show much activity. But now it is clear that at least some of these massive stars are undergoing dramatic changes in internal structure just before the supernova explosion, leading to wild mass ejection and intense radiation. Astronomers certainly won’t give the red giants peace to find out more now.

Video: Watch a red supergiant star go supernova in this stunning animation