{"id":3787,"date":"2022-01-18T11:02:08","date_gmt":"2022-01-18T11:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2022\/01\/18\/scientists-got-to-watch-a-core-collapse-supernova\/"},"modified":"2022-01-18T11:02:08","modified_gmt":"2022-01-18T11:02:08","slug":"scientists-got-to-watch-a-core-collapse-supernova","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2022\/01\/18\/scientists-got-to-watch-a-core-collapse-supernova\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists Got to Watch a Core-Collapse Supernova"},"content":{"rendered":"

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For the first time in human history, scientists have watched a core-collapse supernova from beginning to end, in real time.<\/p>\n

The progenitor star was a red supergiant of about ten solar masses, some 120 million light-years away. In its final months, the dying star\u2019s brightness flared dramatically as it cast off its shell of hydrogen and helium. All the while, a team of researchers conducting the Young Supernova Experiment (YSE) were watching \u2014 and what they saw challenges our whole narrative of how these stars die.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a breakthrough in our understanding of what massive stars do moments before they die,\u201d said<\/a> lead researcher Wynn Jacobson-Gal\u00e1n. \u201cDirect detection of pre-supernova activity in a red supergiant star has never been observed before in an ordinary Type II supernova. For the first time, we watched a red supergiant star explode!\u201d<\/p>\n

Up until now, all the red supergiants observed before they exploded had spent their last months being quite sedate. We\u2019d seen no evidence of violent stellar behavior at the end of their lifetimes. But this star had a grace note, a light show observed before its grand finale. That\u2019s what makes it so remarkable \u2014 and it\u2019s also how the YSE team detected the impending explosion.<\/p>\n