Imagine witnessing the heart of a dying star in its final moments. For the first time, astronomers have caught a supernova in the act of shedding its innermost layers—offering a real-time glimpse into stellar evolution.
Supernova 2021yfj, located in our Milky Way galaxy, surprised researchers when its outer shells of hydrogen and helium were gone, and even the dense silicon and sulfur layers had been stripped away. "We have never observed a star that was stripped to this amount," said Steve Schulze of Northwestern University, part of the discovery team publishing in Nature.
This rare event confirms long-held theories that massive stars build up in nested layers—from lighter elements on the outside to heavier ones at the core. "Because so many of the layers had been stripped off this star, this basically confirmed what those layers were," noted Anya Nugent of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
However, questions remain: Did the star eject its material in a violent finale, or did a hidden companion star pull it away? Future observations may hold the key, but such a clear view of a supernova's interior might not come around again soon.
Reference(s):
cgtn.com
