What astronomers have observed in a galaxy relatively close to its star is bizarre to say the least. After surviving his supernova explosion, he emerges from the cataclysmic event brighter than ever.
undead star
L’Star There is a problem, observed using a space telescope HubbleYes White dwarf star with the mass of the sun, but its size does not exceed the size of the Earth. These incredibly dense objects turned out to be the cores of celestial bodies that had run out of fuel and shed their outer layers. The scenario our star should be in about 5 billion years from now.
As part of a binary star system, white dwarfs have siphons and swallows most of its companion star, thanks to its powerful gravitational pull.Reaching the 1.4 solar mass threshold results in A series of thermonuclear reactions in his heart, Trigger the supernova that should wipe it out.
“We were very surprised to find that the star survived and was brighter than before. “, explain Curtis McCarleyLead author of the new study, published in astrophysical journal.” During the explosion, radioactive material was produced, explaining the supernova’s luminosity, but it turned out that some of it was retained by the surviving celestial debris and used by the latter as fuel. »
this Star” zombie » in a spiral galaxy NGC 1309, much smaller than our Milky Way galaxy, about 108 million light-years from Earth. One light-year represents the distance that a photon travels in a vacuum of 365.5 days, or 9460.730 billion kilometers.
Type Iax supernova
There are different types of supernovas, related to the size and composition of the star and the power of the explosion.galaxy star NGC 1309 Provides researchers with valuable insights into “events” Type Iax “, white dwarfs undergo uncontrolled nuclear fusion after seeing their mass increase relatively quickly, but survive their supernovae. That’s why they are called undead stars.
Although researchers have discovered about 50 such supernovae, they have so far been unable to identify the surviving stars. Like 97% of the stars in the universe, the sun is destined to become a white dwarf, but it cannot become a zombie star without a companion star.
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