March 22, 2009

Star Exploded Too Early, May Blow Apart Supernova Theory

Written by Anne Minard

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has identified a star a million times brighter than the sun that exploded as a supernova in 2005 — well before it should have, according to current theories of stellar evolution.

The doomed star, estimated at about 100 times our sun’s mass, was not mature enough, according to theory, to have evolved a massive iron core of nuclear fusion ash. This is the supposed prerequisite for a core implosion that triggers a supernova blast.

“This might mean that we are fundamentally wrong about the evolution of massive stars, and that theories need revising,” says Avishay Gal-Yam of the Weizmann Institute of Science, in Rehovot, Israel. The finding appears in the online version of Nature Magazine.

The explosion, called supernova SN 2005gl, was seen in the barred-spiral galaxy NGC 266 on October 5, 2005. NGC 266 is about 200 million light years away, in the constellation Pisces.

Full article here:

http://www.universetoday.com/2009/03/22/star-exploded-too-early-may-blow-apart-supernova-theory/