Physics

Astronomers Use Hubble to Work out Exactly When This Star Went Supernova

Astronomers Use Hubble to Work out Exactly When This Star Went Supernova

When certain mass stars go out of fuel, they end their lives in spectacular fashion. The outer layers are no longer pushed by the energy produced in the stellar core, fall under gravity, accelerate and eventually compress everything beneath them where the matter is converted into energy. This energy is released in such a way that it creates an incredible explosion, known as a supernova. It’s not easy to catch the stars going to the supernova in acting, but the astronomers have achieved quite well by recognizing their left parts. These are called supernova remnants and researchers can learn a lot from them.

A special supernova remnant, known as SNR 1E 0102.2-7219, has been observed in detail by Hubble, and astronomers have been able to deal with this information quite efficiently. They studied its evolution backwards in order to work just when it became a supernova. Supernova remnants are made up of large ribbons running at incredible speeds. Their paper states that the average speed for gaseous emissions was 3.2 million kilometers per hour (2 million miles per hour), for 1E 0102.2-7219, which will be published in the Astrophysical Journal. You can go around the world in 45 seconds at this speed.

Previous estimates suggest that the light from the supernova reached Earth one thousand to two thousand years ago. The team believes that their estimates are even stronger, dating back 1,700 years.  The supernova landed in a Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) in the Milky Way satellite galaxy 200,000 light-years away.

The SMC is visible from the southern hemisphere so it was visible to people living south of the equatorial region at a time when the Roman Empire was coming to an end. At present, there are no archeological finds that have recorded this cosmic event, although old ancient accounts of cosmic events exist.

Studies have suggested that even after the immediate aftermath of the explosion, some worrying events may occur. The team believes that this remnant has an imperfect shape due to the collision between the supernova explosion waves and only some elements present in the vicinity of a certain part of the system. Perhaps this material was published by him before he went to kaboom.

Hubble provides another important measurement in data systems. A supernova neutron leaves a compact object like a star or a black hole. The researchers believe that this particular explosion created a neutron star and that the explosion was strong enough to recover the object from the center, with an estimated speed of 830 kilometers (1.9 million mph) per second.