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This zombie star survived a supernova explosion to shine even more than before

This zombie star survived a supernova explosion to shine even more than before

– muratart / Shutterstock.com

Astronomers have observed in a galaxy relatively close to a star, that is, to say the least, an odd one. Having survived the supernova explosion, he emerged from this catastrophic event even brighter than before.

Undead star

L ‘star In question, it was observed using a space telescope Hubblehe is a white dwarf With a mass equal to the mass of the sunBut its size does not exceed the size of the Earth. these Incredibly dense objects They turned out to be the cores of celestial bodies that had run out of fuel and had shed their outer layers. The scenario that should happen to our star in about 5 billion years.

As part of the binary system, a white dwarf possesses She made up and swallowed up a large part of her co-star issueThanks to its strong appeal. Reaching the solar mass threshold led to 1.4 A series of thermonuclear reactions in his heart, traces of Supernova Who should have annihilated her?.

“We were totally surprised to find that the star survived and was shining even more than before. ‘, he explains Curtis McCauleylead author of the new study, published in Astrophysical Journal. ” During the explosion, radioactive material was produced that explains the luminosity of the supernova, but it turned out that some of it was retained by the remaining celestial part and the latter used it as fuel.. »

– AstrumProject / Shutterstock.com

this is star ” zombies » In a spiral galaxy called NGC 1309, much smaller than our Milky Way and located about 108 million light-years from Earth. A light year represents the distance a photon traveled in a vacuum in 365.5 days, or 9,460,730 billion km.

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A type Iax supernova

There are different types of supernovae, related to the size and composition of the star as well as the force of the explosion. galactic star NGC 1309 Provides researchers with insight into an event” Iax type ‘, where a white dwarf undergoes an uncontrolled nuclear fusion after seeing its mass increase relatively quickly, but it has survived a supernova. That is why it is called an undead star.

Although researchers have discovered about 50 such supernovae, they have not yet been able to identify the remaining stars. Like 97% of the stars in the universe, the Sun is doomed to turn into a white dwarf, but in the absence of a companion star, it cannot become a zombie star.