Study of Type Ia supernovae expands knowledge about the origin of dust and its role in the evolution of stars and galaxies
An international team of astronomers has discovered a previously unknown source of dust in the Universe. This discovery could potentially revolutionize our understanding of the formation of stardust and its material.
Stardust plays an important role in the Universe, being the building material for all objects, including the Earth and other planets. However, the formation mechanisms and composition of this dust have still remained a mystery to astronomers.
Researchers were able to determine the causes of stardust through the observation of a special type of supernova that interacted with gas from its surroundings. Supernovae – These are explosions that occur in the final stages of the life of some stars. Of particular interest to researchers are type Ia supernovae that occur in a binary star system.
Astronomers studied supernova Ia, called SN2018evt, for three years after its explosion. It is located in a spiral galaxy about 300 million light years away. This supernova is one of the most reliable “dust factories”. The study used data from several space telescopes, including the Spitzer missions. and NEOWISE, as well as ground-based telescopes in different regions of the world.
Previously, scientists concentrated on searching for such «dust factories» in Type II supernovae, which result from the collapse of the core of massive stars. However, new observations have shown that consideration of type Ia supernovae is a promising direction.
Professor Hayley Gomes, Head of the School of Physics and Astronomy at Cardiff University, one of the study's co-authors, said: «This work by astronomers from different countries combined the efforts of several telescopes to monitor a rare astronomical event. We studied Type Ia supernovae, where a very old, dead star that has a young companion star explodes. The titanic shock wave caused by this explosion creates a new portion of cosmic dust».
Professor Gomez emphasized that the researchers found the amount of dust generated after the explosion of supernova SN2018evt surprising. Just 1041 days after the event, the mass of dust reached 1% of the mass of our Sun. This provides an explanation for the abundance of dust in some elliptical galaxies. This discovery opens new perspectives for understanding the processes of star formation and the composition of star dust.