An artists impression of a red supergiant star in the last year of its life emitting a turbulent cloud of gas. This recommends a minimum of some of these stars undergo considerable internal changes prior to going supernova. Credit: W.M. Keck Observatory/Adam Makarenko
Using a University of Hawaiʻi telescope on Haleakala and another on Maunakea, astronomers, for the extremely first time, imaged the dramatic end to a red supergiant stars life as it was taking place. The huge stars quick self-destruction and final death throes were caught before it collapsed into a Type II supernova.
A team of scientists used the UH Institute for Astronomy-operated Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) on Maui and W. M. Keck Observatory on Hawaiʻi Island observe the red supergiant during its last 130 days leading up to its deadly detonation. The observations became part of their continuous Young Supernova Experiment (YSE) transient study.
” This is a development in our understanding of what huge stars do moments before they die,” stated Wynn Jacobson-Galán, a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow at University of California, Berkeley and lead author of the study. “Direct detection of pre-supernova activity in a red supergiant star has actually never been observed prior to in an ordinary Type II supernova. For the very first time, we saw a red supergiant star take off!”
The discovery was recently released in The Astrophysical Journal.
Pan-STARRS initially discovered the doomed enormous star in summertime of 2020 via the huge quantity of light radiating from the red supergiant. A few months later, in fall of 2020, a supernova lit the sky.
” This is an example of how consistently surveying the sky with Pan-STARRS brings new discoveries,” said Ken Chambers, IfA astronomer and primary investigator of Pan-STARRS. “Without the continuous tracking of the night sky with Pan-STARRS, this type of discovery would not be possible.”
Researchers compared the celestial event to seeing a ticking time bomb. The team continued to monitor SN 2020tlf after the surge; based upon information gotten from Keck Observatorys Deep Imaging and Multi-Object Spectrograph (DEIMOS) and Near Infrared Echellette Spectrograph (NIRES), they identified that SN 2020tlfs progenitor red supergiant star, located in the NGC 5731 galaxy about 120 million light-years away as seen from Earth, was 10 times more enormous than the Sun.
The discovery defies previous concepts of how red supergiant stars develop right prior to exploding. Prior to this, all red supergiants observed prior to taking off were relatively quiescent: they showed no evidence of violent eruptions or luminous emission, as was observed prior to SN 2020tlf. However, this novel detection of intense radiation originating from a red supergiant in the last year prior to taking off suggests that at least a few of these stars must undergo substantial modifications in their internal structure that then results in the troubled ejection of gas minutes prior to they collapse.
For more on this research:
An artists impression of a red supergiant star in the last year of its life giving off a turbulent cloud of gas. “Direct detection of pre-supernova activity in a red supergiant star has never been observed before in a normal Type II supernova. For the very first time, we saw a red supergiant star blow up!”
The discovery defies previous ideas of how red supergiant stars evolve right before blowing up.
Recommendation: “Final Moments. I. Precursor Emission, Envelope Inflation, and Enhanced Mass Loss Preceding the Luminous Type II Supernova 2020tlf” by W. V. Jacobson-Galán, L. Dessart, D. O. Jones, R. Margutti, D. L. Coppejans, G. Dimitriadis, R. J. Foley, C. D. Kilpatrick, D. J. Matthews, S. Rest, G. Terreran, P. D. Aleo, K. Auchettl, P. K. Blanchard, D. A. Coulter, K. W. Davis, T. J. L. de Boer, L. DeMarchi, M. R. Drout, N. Earl, A. Gagliano, C. Gall, J. Hjorth, M. E. Huber, A. L. Ibik, D. Milisavljevic, Y.-C. Pan, A. Rest, R. Ridden-Harper, C. Rojas-Bravo, M. R. Siebert, K. W. Smith, K. Taggart, S. Tinyanont, Q. Wang and Y. Zenati, 6 January 2022, The Astrophysical Journal.DOI: 10.3847/ 1538-4357/ ac3f3a.
