The star was destroyed by a supernova flash

The star was destroyed by a supernova flash

If today you have had a difficult day, imagine yourself in the place of a double star, whose “partner” exploded and turned into a supernova. Perhaps after this your own problems will not seem so terrible ...

The Chandra X-ray Observatory and several other ground-based telescopes made it possible to examine in detail the remnants of the supernova DEM L241 - a cluster of luminous gas and dust. Astronomers discovered in it a “crumpled” star, which in the past was part of a binary system and managed to survive after the explosion of its neighbor.

The star was destroyed by a supernova flash

Supernova remnant DEM L241 The system is located in the dwarf galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud at a distance of 199 thousand light years from Earth. It is believed that supernova remnants do not cool down for hundreds of years. This makes them an ideal “target” for the Chandra Observatory, which records cosmic gamma radiation.

Stars turn into supernovae at the end of their “life cycle,” when they run out of hydrogen fuel, shrink and then explode, releasing enormous amounts of energy. The flash lasts only a few days, after which the supernova becomes a black hole or a neutron star. Today, the DEM L241 system is only the third case of the detection of such objects together with an ordinary star.

The star was destroyed by a supernova flash

Large Magellanic Cloud

X-rays recorded by the Chandra telescope showed that supernova remnants are rich in oxygen, neon and magnesium. The content of these elements indicates that the exploded star exceeded the Sun by 25-40 times in mass.

The period of circulation of a surviving star around the “partner” is only 10 days. Using a network of ground-based telescopes that track orbital velocity oscillations, astronomers hope to find out exactly which object — a neutron star or a black hole — makes up a company of a “surviving” star. And in the distant future, it will also turn into a supernova, and the binary system will become a pair of supermassive objects.

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