The explosion of a dying star resulting in a supernova is a highly unusual event that resembles no cosmic phenomenon ever observed before.
The remnants of a supernova explosion appear like fireworks in space, a phenomenon not previously observed. (Photo: Robert Fesen).
When dying stars explode, known as supernova explosions, they typically emit clouds of dust and gas. However, a new image capturing the remnants of a supernova looks entirely different, resembling fireworks in space.
The supernova remnants with a fireworks-like appearance have never been seen before and may originate from a rare type of supernova.
“I have been studying supernova remnants for 30 years and have never seen anything like this,” said Robert Fesen, an astronomer at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, who captured the “fireworks” remnants late last year.
Fesen’s discovery stemmed from infrared images taken by the American space agency NASA of a mysterious object called Pa 30. For over a decade, no one has been certain what Pa 30 is. There is a hypothesis suggesting that it is the remnant of a supernova observed in 1181, as its emission spectrum contains a line associated with the element sulfur, a heavy element commonly released during explosions.
To verify, Fesen’s team re-photographed the object using an optical filter sensitive to this spectral line, utilizing the Hiltner 2.4 m telescope at the Michigan–Dartmouth–MIT Observatory in Kitt Peak, Arizona, USA. The collected data helped scientists confirm that Pa 30 is indeed a supernova remnant, but what stood out most was the strange fireworks image that astronomers obtained.
This supernova remnant consists of hundreds of fine filaments radiating from a glowing center, closely resembling fireworks. Typically, supernova remnants look like the Crab Nebula, which features a bright dust region with crosshatch patterns within an oval shape of tentacle-like filaments, or resemble Tycho’s Supernova, which appears as a ball with chaotic knots inside.
The Crab Nebula represents a typical form of a supernova explosion, unlike the fireworks shape of the newly discovered remnants. (Photo: NASA).
“The shape of the Pa 30 remnant is astonishing; I have never seen anything like it before,” said Saurabh Jha, an astronomer at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey.
Experts speculate that the peculiar fireworks-like remnant, featuring a center with rays of light emanating around it, arises from a type of supernova explosion that is rarely observed, known as 1ax. The more common type of supernova, 1a, occurs when a white dwarf star siphons material from a companion star, ultimately growing too large and exploding, scattering material across the galaxy.
It remains unclear how, but in the case of a 1ax supernova, the white dwarf survives the explosion, unlike 1a supernovae, where the white dwarf is completely destroyed, explained astronomer Ryan Foley from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Foley noted that the reason 1ax supernovae are less frequently detected compared to 1a supernovae is that they are dimmer. “For over a thousand years, humans have observed regular supernovae, but other types of supernovae hide in the shadows,” Foley remarked.
