Astronomers track exploding star for over 100 years
Astronomers have tracked the evolution of a dying star for over a century. The star has run out of nuclear fuel and has violently exploded.
Astronomers have published findings based on 130 years of observations of the so-called spirograph nebula, designated as IC418 at a distance of about 4,000 lightyears from the Earth. The observations go all the way back to 1893, when the nebula was first recorded through a telescope. Astronomers have determined that the characteristic green light emitted by the oxygen atoms in the nebula has grown in intensity by around 2.5 times since the object was first observed by Victorian astronomers.
The astronomers were able to determine that the change is because of the rising temperature of the central star, which has increased by around 3,000°C since the nebula was first observed, or roughly 1,000°C every 40 years. For comparison, the temperature of the Sun increased by about the same amount during its formation, but did it over a period of 10 million years. While the heating of the star is faster than any previously observed, it is still slower than predictions by sophisticated theoretical models.
Observations challenge conventional understanding
The observations of IC418 challenges the conventional understanding of the final stages of star evolution, as they age and die, as they are not in line with the theoretical understanding of the process. A paper describing the findings has been published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. The research may require scientists to rethink the masses of stars that are capable of producing carbon, an element essential for life. All the elements that make up our bodies were cooked in the furnaces at the cores of stars.