For the first time, astronomers witness the death of a red supergiant star before its final collapse and massive explosion into a supernova.
. “We’ve never confirmed such violent activity in a dying red supergiant star where we see it produce such a luminous emission, then collapse and combust, until now.”
Although the star was in a galaxy about 120 million light-years away — both the star and the galaxy are too faint The supernova flash and the observations that followed showed the star was surrounded by shells of gas when it exploded — probably the same gas it had emitted in the month leading up to the detonation.
Red giants like the supernova in the study, however, can use their fuel in only a few hundred million years, and then collapse when they can’t carry out fusion anymore.“That propagates outwards and unbinds the whole star,” he said. “It rips through the star and pushes all the layers out really fast.”