by From Will Dunham
Washington (Reuters) -the explosion of a star called Supernova is an immense violent event. As a rule, it is a star that is more than eight times as high as the mass of our sun, which exhausts its nuclear fuel and goes through a core collapse, which triggers a single powerful explosion.
But a rarer type of supernova includes a different kind of star – an outstanding ember that is known as a white dwarf – and a double detonation. Researchers have received photographic evidence for this type of supernova for the first time, using the Chile-based very large telescope of the European southern observatory.
The back-to-back explosions deleted a white dwarf with a mass that corresponded approximately to the sun, and was around 160,000 light from the earth in a galaxy near the Milky Way, which described the large Magellan cloud. A light year is the distance light in one year, 9.5 trillion km (5.9 trillion miles).
The picture shows the scene of the explosion about 300 years after the appearance, with two concentric shells of the element move outside.
This type of explosion, which is called type IA Supernova, would have included the interaction between a white dwarf and a closely circular accompanying star – either another white dwarf or an unusual star that is rich in Helium – in a so -called binary system.
The primary white dwarf through its gravitational train would start wiping helium from his companion. The helium on the surface of the white dwarf would eventually become so hot and tight that it would detonate and creates a shock wave that compressed and inflamed the underlying core of the star and triggered a second detonation.
“Nothing remains. The white dwarf is completely interrupted,” said Priyam, Doctoral in astrophysics at the University of New South Wales Canberra in Australia, leading author of the study published on Wednesday in the Nature Astronomy magazine.
“The time delay between the two detonations is essentially determined when the detonation of the helium travels from one star star to the other.
In the more frequent supernova type, a remnant of the massive exploded star is left in the form of a dense neutron star or a black hole.
The researchers used the spectroscopic explorer of the very large telescope of the multi-unit initor or the instrument to map the distribution of various chemical elements in supernova consequences. Calcium can be seen blue in the picture – an outer ring caused by the first detonation and an inner ring by the second.
These two calcium shells are “the perfect evidence of smoking weapons for the double detonation mechanism,” said that.
“We can call this forensic astronomy – my invented term – because we study the deaths of stars to understand what caused death,” said that.
Stars with up to eight times as high as the mass of our sun seem to be a white dwarf. Finally, they burn the entire hydrogen that they use as fuel. The gravity then lets them collapse and blow their outer layers in a “red giant” piese and finally leaves a compact core – the white dwarf. The vast majority of these do not explode as supernovas.
While scientists knew about the existence of Supernovas of type IA, there has been no clear visual evidence of such double detonation so far. Type -Ia -Supernovas are important in terms of heavenly chemistry because they forge heavier elements such as calcium, sulfur and iron.
“This is important to understand the galactic chemical development including the building blocks of planets and life,” said that.
A sulfur bowl was also observed in the new observations of the Supernova sequences.
Iron is a crucial part of the planetary composition of the earth and of course a part of human red blood cells.
In addition to its scientific importance, the picture offers an aesthetic value.
“It’s beautiful,” said page number. “We see the birth process of elements in the death of a star. The Big Bang only made hydrogen and helium and lithium. Here we see how calcium, sulfur or iron are brought back and distributed into the host galaxy, a cosmic cycle of matter.”
(Reporting according to Will Dunham, editing of Rosalba O’Brien)
