“We’ve never seen anything like this,” says astronomer Alex Ji of the University of Chicago and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), who has studied one of the Milky Way’s stars. Scientists wonder how another star exploded in space, traces of which were found on the existing object J0931+0038.
The Science Alert portal explains that astronomers are currently studying how one of the ancient stars could have exploded. its mass is at least 50 times that of the Sun. The star may have exploded in a way that defies scientific knowledge.
The star J0931+0038 studied by scientists has a “strange composition” – we read on Science Alert. According to astronomers, the object located in the Milky Way has a composition that clearly indicates that it is the remains of a huge ancient star, whose mass is 50 times greater than that of the Sun.
The strangest thing about this discovery is that… According to scientists’ theory, the explosion of such a large object should cause an immediate collapse into a black hole. The star should not have gone through a supernova.
The rest of the article is below the video
– Whatever happened then must have been extraordinary – comments Alex Ji. Scientists explain that J0931+0038 is a red giant first identified by SDSS in 1999. The full spectrum of the star’s light was recorded 20 years later, in 2019. This paved the way for determining the composition chemistry of this low-mass red giant star. . Scientists regularly examine these types of objects due to their age it is possible to learn the secrets of the primordial Universe.
New stars form from gas clouds, including J0931+0038© CSA, ESA, James Josephides, Melissa Weiss, NASA, S5, SDSS-V, StSci, University of Chicago, Yuri Beletsky
However, the spectrum of J0931+0038 revealed its composition astronomers cannot compare it to anything discovered in the past. It contained very few elements such as sodium and aluminum, but was characterized by a large amount of iron (nickel and zinc). The content of elements heavier than iron (strontium and palladium) exceeded the standards known to science.
Sometimes we see one of these features, but we’ve never seen them all in the same star before.
Jennifer Johnson Ohio State University
The team of scientists determined that the metals identified in J0931+0038 must come from another nucleosynthetic source with masses between 50 and 80 solar masses. The object was supposed to explode, expelling elements that ultimately contributed to the formation of J0931+0038. What is surprising is that such a massive star should gravitationally collapse inwards rather than explode outwards..
Scientists point out that there is no existing model for the formation of stars and elements can’t explain what happened in space. At the same time, Science Alert emphasizes that the explosion that scientists are investigating is a mystery that cannot be solved today. To change this situation, it is necessary to find more stars with such a strange composition and study them.
Norbert Garbarek, journalist from Wirtualna Polska
2024-01-15 18:22:16
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