Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) may be the winners of a mysterious 37-year-long game of hide-and-seek and solved a stellar death mystery in the process. They detected the best known evidence for a neutron star laying in the remnants of one of the most famous supernovae in space.
This massive star explosion created so much debris that it took several years and one of the most powerful space telescopes ever created to peer through the wreckage of its stellar death. The findings are detailed in a study published February 22 in the journal Science and advances the study of these dramatic celestial deaths.
“The mystery over whether a neutron star is hiding in the dust has lasted for more than 30 years and it is exciting that we have solved it,” study co-author and University College London astrophysicist Mike Barlow said in a statement.
[Related: An amateur astronomer spotted a new supernova remarkably close to Earth.]
What is a supernova?
A supernova is the explosive final death of some of the most massive stars in the known universe. They occur in stars that are eight to 10 times the mass of our sun, so it can take years for all of that gas and energy to collapse in on itself. Its final initial death blows can end within a few hours, but the brightness of the explosion will generally peak within a few months. Importantly, supernovae offer a way for scientists to study a key astronomical process in real time. Explosions like these fill space with the iron, silicon, carbon, and oxygen that build future stars and planets. They can even create the molecules that create life.
In the study, the team looked at Supernova (SN) 1987A. This well known supernova occurred 160,000 light-years from Earth in a region called the Large Magellanic Cloud. Its light was first observed on Earth in February 1987, with its brightness peaking that May. It was the first supernova that could be seen with the naked eye since
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