Skip to main content

Astronomers catch the destruction of a red supergiant star in real time

When very large stars run out of fuel and reach the end of their lives, they can explode in massive, dramatic events called supernovas. These explosions throw off enormous amounts of light and energy, but there’s much we still don’t know about how this process happens. Now, astronomers have observed a red supergiant star going supernova for the first time, catching a glimpse of the massive star’s final moments of life.

“This is a breakthrough in our understanding of what massive stars do moments before they die,” said Wynn Jacobson-Galán, lead author of the study, in a statement. “Direct 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!”

An artist’s impression of a red supergiant star in the final year of its life emitting a tumultuous cloud of gas.
An artist’s impression of a red supergiant star in the final year of its life emitting a tumultuous cloud of gas. This suggests at least some of these stars undergo significant internal changes before going supernova. W. M. Keck Observatory/Adam Makarenko

The team observed the supernova SN 2020tlf using two telescopes in Hawai’i, Pan-STARRS, and the W. M. Keck Observatory. They were able to spot the red supergiant before the supernova occurred as it was giving off significant amounts of light as well as ejecting large amounts of gas. They observed the star for 120 days before it went supernova in fall 2020, and they saw a dense cloud of gas surrounding the star when it exploded.

Recommended Videos

“Keck was instrumental in providing direct evidence of a massive star transitioning into a supernova explosion,” said senior author Raffaella Margutti, an associate professor of astronomy at UC Berkeley. “It’s like watching a ticking time bomb. 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.”

Please enable Javascript to view this content

The star which exploded was particularly large, at 10 times the mass of the sun, and was located 120 million light-years away in the galaxy NGC 5731. It is of particular interest to researchers as it was so active before exploding, while previously observed red supergiants have been relatively calm before going supernova.

“I am most excited by all of the new ‘unknowns’ that have been unlocked by this discovery,” said Jacobson-Galán. “Detecting more events like SN 2020tlf will dramatically impact how we define the final months of stellar evolution, uniting observers and theorists in the quest to solve the mystery of how massive stars spend the final moments of their lives.”

The results are published in The Astrophysical Journal.

Georgina Torbet
Georgina has been the space writer at Digital Trends space writer for six years, covering human space exploration, planetary…
Astronomers spot rare star system with six planets in geometric formation
Orbital geometry of HD110067: Tracing a link between two neighbour planets at regular time intervals along their orbits, creates a pattern unique to each couple. The six planets of the HD110067 system together create a mesmerising geometric pattern due to their resonance-chain.

Astronomers have discovered a rare star system in which six planets orbit around one star in an elaborate geometrical pattern due to a phenomenon called orbital resonance. Using both NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and the European Space Agency's (ESA) CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite (CHEOPS), the researchers have built up a picture of the beautiful, but complex HD110067 system, located 100 light-years away.

The six planets of the system orbit in a pattern whereby one planet completes three orbits while another does two, and one completes six orbits while another does one, and another does four orbits while another does three, and so one. The six planets form what is called a "resonant chain" where each is in resonance with the planets next to it.

Read more
James Webb observes merging stars creating heavy elements
This image from Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument highlights GRB 230307A’s kilonova and its former home galaxy among their local environment of other galaxies and foreground stars. The neutron stars were kicked out of their home galaxy and travelled the distance of about 120,000 light-years, approximately the diameter of the Milky Way galaxy, before finally merging several hundred million years later.

In its earliest stages, the universe was composed mostly of hydrogen and helium. All of the other, heavier elements that make up the universe around us today were created over time, and it is thought that they were created primarily within stars. Stars create heavy elements within them in the process of fusion, and when these stars reach the ends of their lives they may explode in supernovas, spreading these elements in the environment around them.

That's how heavier elements like those up to iron are created. But for the heaviest elements, the process is thought to be different. These are created not within stellar cores, but in extreme environments such as the merging of stars, when massive forces create exceedingly dense environments that forge new elements.

Read more
Wild ‘heartbreak’ star has waves three times the height of the sun
Artist conception of the system, where the smaller star induces breaking surface waves in the more massive companion.

Astronomers often share news about strange and exotic exoplanets, like one that is shaped like a football or another that has metallic rain. But far-off stars can be strange as well, as one recent piece of research points out. An enormous new type of star, which researchers are calling a "heartbreak" star, has gigantic waves on its surface that are three time the size of our sun.

The star, officially called MACHO 80.7443.1718, gives off regular pulses of brightness, making it similar to a known type of star called a heartbeat star. Stars like this are typically one of a pair, which orbit each other in an elongated, oval-shaped orbit. When the two stars come close to each other, their gravitational forces pull at each other, creating waves on their surfaces, similar to how the moon causes tides on Earth. But this particular star is an extreme version of the phenomenon, with brightness that varies by 200 times as much as a typical example.

Read more