Reigniting a mystery that dates back decades.
Supernova explosions are enormous blasts which signal the death of stars – and which have been spotted by people on Earth for more than 1,000 years.
But astronomers just spotted something very, very strange: a ‘zombie’ star which exploded multiple times, over a period of 50 years.
Iair Arcavi of UC Santa Barbara says, ‘This supernova breaks everything we thought we knew about how they work. It’s the biggest puzzle I’ve encountered in almost a decade of studying stellar explosions.’
A normal supernova rises to peak brightness and fades over 100 days.
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Supernova iPTF14hls, on the other hand, grew brighter and dimmer at least five times over three years.
When the scientists examined archival data, they were astonished to find evidence of an explosion in 1954 at the same location.
Somehow this star survived that explosion and then exploded again in 2014.
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The star is at least 50 times more massive than the sun and probably much bigger.
Lars Bildsten says, ‘Supernova iPTF14hls may be the most massive stellar explosion ever seen.
‘For me, the most remarkable aspect of this supernova was its long duration, something we have never seen before. It certainly puzzled all of us as it just continued shining.’
One theory is that it’s a ‘pulsational pair-instability supernova’, where energy is converted into matter and antimatter – producing an explosion which blows off the star’s outer layers and leaves the core intact.
Researcher Andy Howell says, ‘These explosions were only expected to be seen in the early universe and should be extinct today.
‘This is like finding a dinosaur still alive today. If you found one, you would question whether it truly was a dinosaur.’