There are few astronomic events as herculean as a supernova . Among supernovae , there are different types , and scientists think they might have crack the mystery of one of the brilliant : superluminous supernovae .
Their name patently mean that they are brighter than your regular supernova ( hundreds of times in some cases ) , and they also last for longer . These characteristics could make them well-off to tell apart , but in reality , these event are passably rarified , with only a dozenexamplesobserved so far .
For this reason , an outside team of uranologist has been using the Great Canary Telescope on the Canary Islands to scan the sky , ready to set off keep an eye on a superluminous supernova as soon as it happens . After getting a hint from the Dark Energy Survey of an interesting upshot , which they called DES14X3taz , the team followed the event to discover that it did n’t calculate like at all like other supernova .
DES14X3taz , which is located 6.4 billion light - long time aside , show a first sudden brightening followed by a dimming phase before the system begin to get brighter again .
“ We suppose that a very monumental star topology , some 200 times the mass of the Sun , collapses to form a magnetar , ” explained Mathew Smith , a postdoctoral investigator at the University of Southampton , in astatement . “ In the process , the first explosion pass off , which expels into blank space a quantity of matter equivalent to the mass of our Sun , and this give rise to the first top [ in luminosity ] .
“ The second top appears when the whizz founder to shape the magnetar , which is a very dense object rotating speedily on its axis , and which ignite up the matter expelled from the first explosion . This heating system is what beget the second peak in the luminosity . "
The inquiry , which is published in theAstrophysical Journal Letters , is the first attempt at a complete spirit at the organic evolution of superluminous supernova . This understanding could release these events from interesting to utile – by standardizing their properties , we could apply them to severally measure the distances of their host galaxies .
And the nature of these galaxies might play a role in the chance a hotshot has to end up as a superluminous supernova . Most of these supernovae have been found in humble galaxy poor in heavy elements , another mystery that only more observations can resolve .
