Using Korea’s exoplanet search system to find a clue to the ‘death of a star’

Light caught in 1 hour of type la supernova explosion
“The color reddens between 1 and 12 hours after the explosion.
Due to the high distribution of iron content at the edges”

An international joint research team including Korean scientists found a clue to the death of a star by capturing the light emitted by the explosion.

The Korea Astronomy Research Institute, the University of Toronto, Canada, the Carnegie Institute of the USA, the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), the University of Arizona, the California State University, the Las Cumbres Observatory, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) international joint research team used Korea’s exoplanet search system (KMNet) to They announced on the 21st that they have found observational evidence showing the final stage of the star’s evolution and extinction in a supernova only about an hour after the star exploded. The results of this study were published in ‘Nature Astronomy’, an international scientific journal in the field of astronomy.

The la-type supernova has a constant maximum brightness when it explodes, so it is used to measure the cosmic distance, to study the origin of heavy elements such as iron (Fe), as well as to study the death of stars. However, it is not known how the type la supernova explodes until now.

The research team observed the supernova ‘SN 2018aoz’ made less than an hour with KMNet. It is the earliest explosive light in the history of observation of a type la supernova. Astronomers are focusing on finding these bursts of light because the faster they can detect supernova light, the easier it is to measure the size of a star and the elements inside it. The 2011 SN 2011fe supernova was observed in 11 hours, the 2017 SN 2017cbv in 7 hours, and the 2019 SN 2018oh in 3.6 hours.

This observation confirmed that the color of the supernova is reddish between 1 and 12 hours after the explosion, and this is because the iron component is widely distributed at the edge of the supernova, the research team explained. It turns out that type la supernovae begin with the star’s outermost helium burst, followed by a rapid mixing of the explosive material.

Reporter Yoo Yong-ha

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