Watching the explosive end to a red supergiant star

On January 6, 2022, a group of scientists from Northwestern University and the University of California, Berkeley, announced in The Astrophysical Journal the study of the explosion of supernova SN 2020tlf in real-time. This is the first time such an observation was made of a star collapsing into a type II supernova.

The fictional Doctor Who proposed using a supernova as a power source for extremely energy-intense processes, such as time travel.

As a star collapses into a supernova, it forms a forceful and brilliant explosion. At the end of its lifetime, a massive star, 10-20 million years old, becomes unstable and collapses in on its core. Within seconds the blast wave moves through the entire star erupting at its surface to become a visible phenomenon. This stellar process releases a massive amount of energy.

Predicting when a star will explode has been more a guess than science.

Now, with improved time-series astronomy initiatives, where and when to look for supernova has become more certain. New methods, instruments, and sky surveys allow us to be watching for the outburst. The surface doesn’t show a hint that it would lead to this massive explosion.

Adam Burrows of Princeton University said to MetaStellar, “The new time-series initiatives will lead to thousands of supernovae being discovered in a year, where it was only 10 or 20 before”.

Supernovae are critical to life.

He continued, “It is the origin of anything. The pith and marrow of our understanding of the universe. It is central to the birth of exotic objects and the source of elements of nature–the oxygen we breathe, the iron in our blood.”

Burrows explained that this was not the last time this type of discovery would be seen. In Chile, the Rubin telescope, a 3.2 Gigapixel instrument, the largest of its kind, and the PAN-STARRS Sky Survey produce time-series data that will provide data on the object in advance of a supernova. Princeton plays a significant role in connecting data pipelines in these initiatives.

“Few events could be cooler than the explosion of a star! The implications are enormous.”

said Philip A. Pinto, Associate Professor, Department of Astronomy, & Associate Astronomer, Steward Observatory, continuing he said, “The usual story we give for core-collapse supernovae is that the late stages of stellar evolution, those which occur for years, months, and days before the core collapse, have no effect on the surface of the star. Some recent work has suggested that these late stages may perhaps be violent enough to have some effect on the surface after all. The exciting thing about these new observations is that may be pointing in the same direction. I say “may” because the connection made in the paper is far from conclusive and relies on a chain of models, each of which has its uncertainties, but that is to be expected when research is in its most exciting stage.”

The one remarkable thing about the study of this supernova is that it captured data and images–before, during, and after the explosion. The Pan-STARRS1 (PS1) telescope detected significant pre-explosion flux for ∼130 days prior to the discovery date.

The video below is an artist’s rendition of a red supergiant star transitioning into a Type II supernova, emitting a violent eruption of radiation and gas on its dying breath before collapsing and exploding. Credit: W. M. Keck Observatory/Adam Makarenko

https://vimeo.com/658748207

In contrast, the next video by Adam Block, President/Owner at Caelum Observatory, shows the expansion only after the star has gone supernova.

Expansion of the Crab Nebula (1999-2021) Credit: Adam Block

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