All articles tagged with #stellar death
Scientists captured the first detailed image of a supernova's initial shape, revealing it was not perfectly spherical but stretched along one axis, challenging previous models of stellar explosions. The observation was made using the Very Large Telescope shortly after the explosion of SN 2024ggi in galaxy NGC 3621, providing new insights into the mechanics of star death.
The James Webb Space Telescope has captured detailed infrared images of the Butterfly Nebula, revealing new insights into the death of a star and the formation of cosmic materials that could contribute to Earth-like planets, including organic compounds and minerals like quartz and iron.
Astronomers have traced a mysterious class of cosmic explosions called Fast X-ray Transients (FXTs) back to their source, revealing an event that occurred 12 billion years ago, providing new insights into stellar death and the early universe, and demonstrating the capabilities of the Einstein Probe telescope.
Scientists observed a unique supernova, SN 2023zkd, which appeared to interact with a nearby black hole in an unprecedented way, including a prolonged brightening and signs of material hitting a disk near the black hole, suggesting a star trying to 'eat' a black hole before exploding. This discovery, aided by AI algorithms, offers new insights into the complex interactions between stars and black holes during stellar death.
The James Webb Space Telescope captured a detailed image of the Apep nebula, revealing it contains two Wolf-Rayet stars and a third star, providing new insights into the death of stars and the dust they leave behind.
A new JWST image of the Apep nebula reveals a complex system of two Wolf-Rayet stars with a spiral dust structure, providing insights into the violent death of massive stars and the formation of cosmic dust, with recent data showing multiple dust shells and a third star companion.
Scientists have discovered a rare stardust particle locked within an ancient meteorite, offering insights into the explosive supernova death of a distant star and the formation of the solar system. The particle's extreme isotopic ratio suggests it originated from a recently discovered hydrogen-burning supernova, shedding light on the life and death of stars. This groundbreaking research, published in the Astrophysical Journal, demonstrates how rare particles in meteorites can provide atomic-scale insights into events beyond the solar system.
A new forensic analysis of the tidal disruption event ASASSN-14li, where a star was ripped apart by a black hole, reveals that the star was likely three times the mass of the Sun. Observations from NASA's Chandra and ESA's XMM-Newton X-ray telescopes detected carbon and nitrogen in the black hole's accretion disk, indicating the evisceration of a high-mass star. This finding provides valuable insight into the destruction of massive stars by black holes and could aid in the search for similar events in other galaxies.
The Webb Space Telescope has captured an image of Supernova 1987A, revealing its equatorial and outer rings, crescent structures, and inner ejecta. The image, taken in September 2022, shows the dense core of the supernova's inner ejecta, which remains impenetrable even to Webb's high resolution. SN 1987A, located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, emits a range of electromagnetic radiation, and future observations by Webb may help unravel the mysteries surrounding this stellar explosion.
Astronomers have discovered what could be the most distant site of star birth and death ever seen, located in a nebula within a galaxy 13.2 billion light-years away. The observations made using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) revealed regions of dust and oxygen emissions weaving around each other, indicating intense ultraviolet radiation from newly formed stars. The researchers also identified a large cavity within the nebula, potentially a superbubble created by supernova explosions. This discovery provides insights into stellar lifecycles in the early universe and may be further explored with the James Webb Space Telescope and the Extremely Large Telescope.
Astronomers have observed a new mechanism of stellar death, as they discovered evidence of a gamma-ray burst (GRB) resulting from the collision of neutron stars or stellar remnants within the chaotic environment of a supermassive black hole. This finding challenges the traditional understanding of how stars die and provides insights into the evolution of stars and the diverse ways they meet their demise. The research could also help explain unexpected sources of gravitational waves and shed light on the spectacular diversity of explosions in the universe.
A gamma-ray burst detected in a distant galaxy nearly four years ago was likely generated by a demolition-derby-style collision between two stars or stellar remnants, according to a new study. The burst, known as GRB 191019A, is a long one and lasted a little more than a minute. The research team wants to find and characterize more events like GRB 191019A — ideally pairing visible-light data with a corresponding gravitational-wave detection. Such "multimessenger" observations would reveal a great deal about these enigmatic explosions, team members said.