NASA data reveals weird x-ray changes in the exploded ruins of dead stars
NASA data reveals weird x-ray changes in the exploded ruins of dead stars This sparkling galaxy is home to a set of supernova remnants that showed variable brightnesses over 14 years of data A set of supernovae are behaving in weird ways, more than a decade’s worth of data from
NASA data reveals weird x-ray changes in the exploded ruins of dead stars
This sparkling galaxy is home to a set of supernova remnants that showed variable brightnesses over 14 years of data
A set of supernovae are behaving in weird ways, more than a decade’s worth of data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory reveals. Instead of slowly fading, as expected, these exploded stars have dramatically varied in brightness over the course of 14 years.
Typically, when a massive star explodes in a supernova, it leaves behind a cloud of superheated gas and debris. Over time, these stellar fireworks tend to fade, but Chandra observations of the galaxy Messier 83 (M83) from 2000 through 2014 suggests that’s not always the case. There supernova remnants that researchers had expected to have faded x-ray emissions actually showed surprising variety in the brightness of their x-rays.
The findings were published in the Astrophysical Journal this month.
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M83 is around 15 million light-years away from Earth. Also called the Southern Pinwheel, this spiral galaxy is a hotbed of star formation. “We knew that individual X-ray sources could vary dramatically,” said Andrea Prestwich, an astronomer at the Catholic University of America and the study’s lead author, in a statement . “But finding that so many supernova remnants were behaving this way was a real surprise. Something unusual is going on in these objects. Pinpointing the cause remains a challenge, as M83’s distance limits the detail we can observe.”
At least one of the odd remnants has an explanation—the debris from SN 1957D, a supernova first seen almost 70 years ago, appears to be colliding with material surrounding it, leading to the increased x-ray emissions. But the cause of the other changing emissions is unclear.
