Piecing together these bizarre characteristics, the team came to one conclusion: somehow the star underwent a partial supernova, but survived. Both stars would have been carried off in opposite directions at their orbital velocities in a kind of slingshot manoeuvre. “With the count of nickel and manganese in the expanding cloud, we are able to distinguish which of these scenarios is responsible for a supernova remnant,” said Brian Williams of Goddard astrophysicist. The nearest known white dwarf is Sirius B, at 8.6 light years, the smaller component of the Sirius binary star. Space is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Think your friends would be interested? Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Lifelike robot said to resemble ‘average Russian woman’ takes up civil service role in Urals, Banksy shares rare VIDEO of himself tagging London Tube with Covid-themed graffiti, 'We should be allowed to say what we want': Idris Elba blasts censorship of movies & TV over offensive material. A white dwarf is so dense that fusion sweeps rapidly out from the center, releasing the tremendous energy that blows the star apart. A strange white dwarf star hurtling through the Milky Way may be the survivor of a "partial supernova," a new study finds. What might explain all these strange details about this white dwarf? “All of these facts imply that it must have come from some kind of close binary system and it must have undergone thermonuclear ignition,” says Boris Gaensicke, lead author of the study. The star's unusually low mass could also be explained by an explosion blowing the rest of it away. All the extra weight from the stolen mass squeezes the white dwarf's core, which drives the core's temperature and density high enough to set off a thermonuclear chain reaction that explosively obliterates the white dwarf. In 1987, astronomers spotted a ‘titanic supernova’ in a nearby galaxy blazing with the power of over 100 million suns (pictured). In the case of SDSS J1240+6710, the scientists noted the elements seen in the white dwarf's atmosphere could have all been produced in the first thermonuclear reactions of a supernova. The observation was made in October 2010 in an energy range between 5,000 and 9,000 electron volts, and reached a total exposure of 19 hours effective. Eventually, the core is so heavy it can't stand its own gravitational force and the core collapses, resulting in another giant explosion. Your email address will not be published. Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! This isn’t the only star to disobey what we thought were the rules about supernovae. Previous research into the origins of thermonuclear supernovas largely focused on larger white dwarfs. Share this story! At the time, astronomers noted that the object had an unusual composition. This points to the possibility that there are many more such “supernova survivors” out there and that there may also be even more types of supernova that we have yet to observe. The best studied thermonuclear supernovae are the 'Type Ia', which led to the discovery of dark energy, and are now used to map structure of the Universe. A typical white dwarf is massive as our Sun, and has more or less the size of a terrestrial planet. Please refresh the page and try again. The other star can be anything from a giant star to an even smaller white dwarf. These heavier elements are normally cooked up from the lighter ones and the lack of iron group elements suggests that the star only went through a partial supernova before the nuclear burning died out. There was a problem. The star in question is a white dwarf called SDSS J1240+6710, which was discovered in 2015. (Image: © Mark Garlick/University of Warwick), Obviously it's an enormous spaceship. The scientists measured its velocity and found that it’s traveling at around 900,000 km/h (560,000 mph). However, there is a clear absence of what is known as the 'iron group' of elements, iron, nickel, chromium and manganese - defining features of a supernova. ” Subscribe to RT newsletter to get stories the mainstream media won’t tell you, Illustration © University of Warwick/Mark Garlick, Incredibly rare glimpse of one of universe’s biggest EXPLOSIONS captured by scientists (PHOTO), Internet implodes after AOC says only entitled moaners think cancel culture exists (in a post complaining about her critics), ‘How Islam moderated slavery’: BBC blasted for piece explaining the ‘nice’ way to treat humans as property, ‘Destructive ideas’: Russia accuses US state-run media of spreading fake information about constitutional amendment vote, ‘All who don’t kowtow to BLM must be destroyed’ – this new Inquisition wants to dismantle the America we know, Turkish president Erdogan signs decree turning Istanbul's Hagia Sofia into a mosque after court ruling, ‘Threat to the community’? One kind of supernova has shown scientists that we live in an expanding universe, one that is growing at an ever increasing rate. The data in the infrared band obtained from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope have also provided information on the amount of gas and dust collected from the cloud while expanding into interstellar space. Lead author Professor Boris Gaensicke from the Department of Physics at the University of Warwick said the star was particularly unique. A white dwarf star called SDSS J124043.01+671034.68 (SDSS J1240+6710) is traveling at 900,000 km/h (559,234 mph) through our Milky Way Galaxy. This makes white dwarfs between objects denser you know, surpassed only by neutron stars and blacks holes. While white dwarfs typically have atmospheres made mostly of hydrogen and helium, this one had neither – instead it was made up of an odd combination of oxygen, neon, magnesium and silicon. Deep in our galaxy » A team of US researchers analyzed X-ray data of the supernova remnant known as 3C 397 collected by the telescope Suzaku. View 1 Image 1 / 1. Scientists have also determined that supernovas play a key role in distributing elements throughout the universe. See the stories that matter in your inbox every morning. Researchers have yet to track down SDSS J1240’s binary partner but the hunt for more supernova survivors continues. Get breaking space news and the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more! This explosion would have blasted SDSS J1240+6710 away from its companion, ripping matter off the small white dwarf and hurling it through deep space at the speed at which it orbited its partner, Gänsicke said. An artist's rendering of a supernova kicking a white dwarf star into high speed, rather than destroying it . Scientists took a closer look with the Hubble Space Telescope and also identified carbon, sodium, and aluminum in the atmosphere, evidence of the thermonuclear explosions which take place in supernovae, which would explain some, but not all of the star’s violent past. Suspiciously though, the “iron group” of elements (iron, nickel, chromium, and manganese) which would normally also be left behind after the thermonuclear storm of a supernova were missing, indicating that the white dwarf only experienced a partial supernova before jetting off elsewhere in the Milky Way. As the star runs out of nuclear fuel, some of its mass flows into its core. Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Hall of the Universe, Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics, Resources For Educators: Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Hall of the Universe, Guided Exploration: Scales of the Universe. Now open! First of all, the star is still intact, but secondly the astronomers detected no iron, nickel, chromium or manganese, all of which should have been produced in a full-blown explosion. Follow Charles Q. Choi on Twitter @cqchoi. Gaensicke said all of these facts imply that it must have come from some kind of close binary system and it must have undergone thermonuclear ignition. “To understand how these stars explode, we have to study the debris in detail with sensitive instruments such as those aboard Suzaku.”, Credit: NASA/Suzaku e NASA/CXC, DSS, e NASA/JPL-Caltech. A supernova occurs when a star explodes, shooting debris and particles into space. This scenario would help to explain the white dwarf's speed, puny size and bizarre atmosphere. In this type of supernova, a white dwarf in a binary star system gains mass from its companion. The researchers spotted signs of carbon, sodium and aluminum in its atmosphere, and its mass was found to be very small – only about 40 percent that of the Sun. Read RT Privacy policy to find out more. Detroit student sent to DETENTION CENTER during pandemic for not doing her homework, The future is here? 'The study of thermonuclear supernovae is a huge field and there's a vast amount of observational effort into finding supernovae in other galaxies,' said Gaensicke. The second type of supernova occurs at the end of a single star's lifetime. A white dwarf, also called a degenerate dwarf, is a stellar core remnant composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter. 'It has all the key features of a white dwarf but it has this very high velocity and unusual abundances that make no sense when combined with its low mass. However, there is a clear absence of what is known as the iron group of elements — iron, nickel, chromium and manganese. Phone: 212-769-5100. Astronomers observed a flash of ultraviolet light after a white dwarf star exploded in a supernova, marking only the second time such an event has been observed. And finally, the blast would be responsible for its insane speed. © The work was published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. 'It has a chemical composition which is the fingerprint of nuclear burning, a low mass and a very high velocity,' he explained. Physicists keep trying to break the rules of gravity but this supermassive black hole just said 'no', Watch Venus glide by in this serene video from the BepiColombo spacecraft's flyby, On This Day in Space: Oct. 17, 2016: Antares rocket returns to flight. A supernova may seem like a pretty final fate, but now astronomers have discovered a star that apparently survived this explosive process. The SDSSJ1240+6710 white dwarf may be the survivor of a type of supernova that hasn't yet been 'caught in the act' of explosion, the team said. This would have burned away the hydrogen and helium, which were missing, and produced the carbon, sodium and aluminum, which were detected. The type of supernova seen in these images, known as a Type Ia supernova, originate from a white dwarf in a close binary system accreting material from its companion star. 200 Central Park West This mix sets this white dwarf apart from any other previously known, they said. These heavier elements are normally cooked up from lighter elements, and their absence in this white dwarf suggests it only went part of the way through a supernova, failing to reach the high temperatures and densities needed to forge iron-group elements. There is growing evidence that thermonuclear supernovae can happen under very different conditions to the Type 1a versions widely studied. "Hopefully we'll be able to identify a few dozen similar systems. “Several lines of evidence indicate that both of these mechanisms produce what we call Type Ia supernovae,” said researcher Hiroya Yamaguchi, an astrophysicist at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt NASA.
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