Stunning image of a supernova reveals a dead star that exploded twice

Stunning image of a supernova reveals a dead star that exploded twice

Two concentric rings appear around the supernova remnant SN 0509-67.5, indicating that it exploded twice

ESO / p. Das et al. Star context (Hubble): K. Noll et al.

A white dwarf star with around 160,000 light years seems to have exploded twice – the first evidence that astronomers saw that such supernovae imply a double detonation.

White dwarf stars are dead stars which were once like our sun, but which have exhausted their nuclear fuel, leaving a nucleus of the size of the earth. If a white dwarf draws equipment from a neighboring star, its mass can reach a point where it revives and explodes like an IA type supernova.

The mechanism behind a white dwarf becoming a supernova was not well understood. Some astronomers have hypothesized that there may be two explosions, but so far there has been no evidence of this.

Priyam Das at the University of New South Wales in Canberra, Australia, and her colleagues studied the specters collected by the very large telescope of the Southern European Observatory in Chile of a supernova in the Grand Cloud of Magellanic. The images of the rest, SNR 0509-67.5 clearly show two concentric shells that exploded outwards.

Das says that the white dwarf must have in a way collected helium on its surface – either from another white dwarf of helium nearby, or a massive star rich in helium – and, once sufficiently accumulated, it has exploded.

“We get a very initial detonation of helium and, in tens of seconds, we get the second detonation, so this happens in the blink of an eye,” explains Das.

The equipment of the first explosion was initially moving at 25,000 kilometers per second, therefore, even if the second explosion occurred only tens of seconds later, the two explosions are still separated by huge distances.

It is believed that the light of the explosion would have reached our planet between 310 and 350 years old. This would have been one of the most brilliant objects in the night sky in the southern hemisphere, but there is no recording that any human saw it at the time – perhaps because it was hidden behind our sun.

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