Meanwhile, a core-collapse nova happens when an even larger star (about 10 or more times the sun's mass) runs out of nuclear fuel, causing its iron core to collapse into an ultra-dense black hole or neutron star.Įlectron-capture supernovas fit between these two categories, springing from stars of between eight and 10 solar masses - not too heavy, not too light. The white dwarf core heats up, fusing elements together in ever-hotter reactions until, finally, the star explodes in a brilliant blast. When a star explodes, it typically goes out in one of two ways: A thermonuclear supernova, or an iron core-collapse supernova.Ī thermonuclear supernova occurs when a white dwarf (the withered core of a star up to eight times the mass of the sun) sucks away too much gas from a companion star. Loll (Arizona State University)) The third nova Scientists say the bright, slow-moving gas points to an ancient electron-capture supernova. This 2005 Hubble image of the Crab Nebula is the most detailed ever assembled. "This is where our research fits in - providing modern observations of a progenitor star and supernova explosion, and bridging our understanding of electron-capture supernovae from the explosion to the remnant." "The Crab supernova has been suggested as an electron-capture supernova, but since it happened a thousand years ago, there is not much data on the progenitor star and the explosion itself," lead study author Daichi Hiramatsu, a graduate student at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), told Live Science in an email. With new data in hand, it's looking increasingly likely that the Crab Nebula's spectacular birth was also triggered by this same sort of elusive explosion, the researchers said. After a thorough before-and-after comparison, the team found that this dying star showed all the hallmarks of a rare, theoretical type of supernova explosion that has never been detected in the cosmos before - an electron-capture supernova. In a study published June 28 in the journal Nature Astronomy, researchers studied the gassy remains of that more recent explosion (named SN 2018zd) and matched it up with archival images showing what its progenitor star looked like before it blew its top. Related: Hubble just took a gorgeous new image of the southern Crab nebula's wonky gas bubbles
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