This is a real cosmic wonder - a star that has not died. An international team of scientists has fixed a star that exploded several times over 50 years.
The new explosion of the star iPTF14hls captured in September 2014. Selected light was analyzed to understand the speed and chemical composition of the material emitted during the event.
The analysis led to a II-type supernova and everything seemed completely normal. But after a few months the light increased in brightness. Usually this kind of supernovae remains bright for 100 days. But with iPTF14hls, the figure exceeded 600 days! Most surprisingly, the archived information noted a supernova in the same place in 1954.
A picture of the Palomar Observatory shows a possible explosion in 1954 in the iPTF14hls location (left), as well as a later event in 1993 (right). Usually supernova explode once and shine for several months. But iPTF14hls survived two explosions with a gap of 60 years It turns out that somehow the star survived the explosion and repeated the attempt in 2014. This supernova destroys the usual patterns of functioning of its kind. The analysis showed that for 3 years the glow was darkened and became brighter at least 5 times. For classification used tool SED.
iPTF14hls became brighter and dimmer 5 times over 3 years. Such a conduct was not previously observed, since supernovae remain bright for 100 days, after which they disappear.
Scientists prey on stellar explosions to better understand the origin of most of the universal material. A supernova explosion can even lead to the formation of a system like ours.
