Supernova‘s Shape Revealed just One Day Afterโค Explosion
For the first time, scientists have resolute the shape of a supernova explosion remarkably soon after its beginning – just 26 hours. An international team led byโฃ Yi Yang of โคTsinghua University in Beijing used the Very Large Telescope (VLT) of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) and its FORS2 spectrograph to observe supernova SN 2024ggi in โคdetail. This allowed them to map the geometry of the explosion using a technique called spectropolarimetry, which analyzes the polarizationโข of the emitted โradiation.
Despite being 22 million light-years away in the spiral galaxy โขNGC 3621 (in the constellation โWater Serpent), the VLT’s 8.2-meter telescopes were able to gather crucial data.
SN 2024ggi โขisโค a Type II core collapse supernova, occurring when a โขmassive star exhausts its nuclear fuel. โThe star’s core collapses into โeither a neutron star or โa black hole, and the outer layers fall inward before being violently โexpelled in a rebound shock wave. This shockโ wave releases an โฃimmense amount of energy,โข creating the brilliant supernova. For a few weeks, a supernova can outshine โขbillions of stars in its galaxy.
Yi Yang’s team’s observations with FORS2 revealed that the exploding star initially had an olive-like shape. Over the following hours,as ejected material collided with surrounding gas previously shed by the star,the shape flattened. Importantly, the axisโ of symmetry of theโ ejected material remained consistent. This โsuggests a โcommon underlying mechanism may govern the explosions of dying stars โand dictate their resulting shape.
