Isn’t it just awful when you are just going about your business and suddenly a supernova happens? Good news! Scientists now know what these stars look like before they die.
New simulations have shown that the massive star progenitors to neutron stars dimming rapidly in the months leading up to their explosion show new evidence. The chances of a supernova occurring are high if a large star goes into total obscurity with little fanfare.
Red supergiant star reds are fascinating to observe, with a mass around 8 to 20 times that of the Sun. These creatures are reaching the end their lifespan and are running low on fuel. Nuclear FusionThey are their cores.
The fusion provides an outward pressure that is greater than the inward pressure caused by gravity. You can get quite violent if you remove the fusion. Stars explode, starguts explode in space, and the stellar center collapses for most stars.
This core transforms into an ultradense for the red supergiants. neutron starIt is between 1.1 and 1.2. 2.3 TimesThe Sun’s mass compressed into a small sphere measuring 20 km (12 miles) in diameter.
But, star begins to lose mass before the big show starts. We You don’t really knowThe theoretical level of red supergiant masses loss is very high.
Scientists have confirmed that supergiants die after they are destroyed. However, the exact timeframe is not known.
Could it be for decades as the past research suggests or within a year as some other modeling studies predict.
Benjamin Davies, an astrophysicist from Liverpool John Moores University, UK, led a group of researchers who used simulations and observational evidence to reconstruct the evolution of a dying supergiant.
They performed simulations and discovered that the vast cloud of material around the star blocks optical and near-infrared lights by a factor 10 just before the star explodes.
“The dense material nearly completely obscures the star, making the visible spectrum 100 times fainter,” Davies explains. This means that you won’t likely be able see the star the day before it explodes.
The researchers searched for observational clues to help them gauge the time it takes for mass loss. They discovered several archive images of supergiant star red supernovae that were taken around a year later. This is evidence that large-scale, obscured mass loss takes place at most within one year.
This means that there is no imminent end to Betelgeuse (Although we knew that already). It seems that the mass loss episode that dimmed Betelgeuse’s starlight in 2019 is part of a slower process. According to the latest estimates, the starlight has been reduced by about 1%. 1.5 million years from supernova.
When that day comes, now we’ll know what to be alert for … if we’re still around.
“Until now, we have only been able get detailed observations after supernovae have already occurred.” Davies.
“With this early-warning program, we can be ready to observe them in real-time. We can point the best telescopes around the precursor stars and watch them literally fall apart right before our eyes.”
The results of the research were published in Monthly Notices of The Royal Astronomical Society.
