Astronomers
recently witnessed supernova SN 2020fqv explode inside the interacting
Butterfly galaxies, located about 60 million light-years away in the
constellation Virgo. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Ryan Foley (UC Santa Cruz); Image
Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)
Using
observations from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and other space- and
ground-based telescopes, an international team of astronomers and researchers
has observed the death of a star by supernova in real time—around 60 million
light-years away from Earth in the constellation Virgo. The astronomers described
its discoveries in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society on October 26.
Generally,
astronomers and other researchers have studied supernovas after they occur. Actually,
the first human record of one dates back to 185 CE. “We used to talk about
supernova work like we were crime scene detectives,” said astrophysicist Ryan
Foley, who led the new study, in a NASA press release. By making explanations
after the explosive event, researchers would try to figure out what occurred to
the star.
Foley and research
co-author Samaporn Tinyanont, both of the University of California, Santa Cruz,
are calling the incident, officially named SN 2020fqv, “The Rosetta Stone of
supernovas” because it could help inform researchers when other stars in the
universe are set to explode.
Massive
stars—those much bigger than our sun—explode as supernovas when they run out of
fuel. During a star’s lifespan, its stable spherical shape outcomes from the stability
between heat and pressure produced by hydrogen fusion at its core, which push
outward, and gravity, which pulls inward. As long as that equilibrium is
maintained, nuclear fusion can produce enough power to keep a star shining for
billions of years.
But all
stars ultimately run out of power. And when a star about eight or more times
the mass of our sun runs out of fuel and the outward pressure of heat declines,
gravity wins. It begins to pull everything inward. The star’s core turns denser
and denser, collapsing faster and faster until a final enormous crunch discharges
a surge of heat and energy—as hot as tens of billions of degrees. This causes
the outer material of the star to burst as a supernova.
“You know that saying ‘Live fast, die young’? That actually applies to stars, right? So the most enormous, luminous stars have the shortest lifespans,” Harvard & Smithsonian astronomer Grant Tremblay tells NOVA.
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