Hidden ‘doomed’ star revealed by James Webb Space Telescope could solve decades-old mystery
THE James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has revealed a hidden “doomed” star that could help solve a giant astrophysical mystery.
The star is a massive red supergiant, which JWST photographed just before it exploded in a fiery supernova. Massive red supergiants should, in theory, cause most supernovas, but they are rarely observed. The latest JWST observation, described in a new study published Wednesday October 8 in Letters from the astrophysical journaladds weight to the idea that these giants are often obscured by clouds of dust.
Stars the size of our Sun expand toward the end of their life cycle to become red giants before disappearing. supernova. Red supergiants are massive stars about to explode, usually hundreds or thousands of times larger than our sun.
THE All-Sky Automated Supernova Survey first detected the newly imaged supergiant’s supernova in June. The supernova, officially named SN 2025pht, came from a galaxy called NGC1637which is located 38 million light years from Earth – pretty close to something in space. The authors of the new study identified the supergiant’s source star (its ancestor) by comparing historical stars Hubble Space Telescope data to new JWST images of NGC 1637 taken before and after the explosion.
Researchers like Kilpatrick have suggested that the most massive aging stars might also be the dustiest, so their light is blocked. This possible explanation matches the new JWST observation. The star shone about 100,000 times brighter than our sun, but the team estimated that its dust was so thick that that light was made 100 times dimmer, according to the release.
The dust was also particularly effective at blocking shorter blue particles. wavelengths of light. Fortunately, JWST’s powerful infrared detection was able to detect the longest red wavelengths, providing an unprecedented detailed look at a supergiant on the verge of going supernova.
“SN2025pht is surprising because it appears much redder than almost any other red supergiant we have seen explode as a supernova,” Kilpatrick said. “This tells us that previous explosions could have been much brighter than we thought because we didn’t have the same quality of infrared data that JWST can now provide.”
