Hubble Space Telescope spots star that survived violent explosion of neighbor

By Samantha Mathewson published about 21 hours ago


NASA's most iconic space telescope has spotted a star that survived the violent death of its companion.

When a massive star reaches the end of its life, it explodes in a brilliant burst of light, also known as a supernova. This bright explosion can briefly outshine entire galaxies, which is how the star's surviving partner remained hidden from view — until now. Using the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Camera 3, researchers were able to study the supernova, dubbed SN 2013ge, in ultraviolet light. The scientists found that while the light from the bright stellar explosion has been fading since 2016, another nearby source of ultraviolet light has maintained its brightness over time, suggesting SN 2013ge has a surviving binary companion, according to a statement from NASA.

"This was the moment we had been waiting for, finally seeing the evidence for a binary system progenitor of a fully stripped supernova," Ori Fox, an astronomer from the Space Telescope Science Institute in Maryland and lead investigator on the Hubble research program, said in the statement. "The goal is to move this area of study from theory to working with data and seeing what these systems really look like."

Using the Hubble data, astronomers were able to identify the signature of various elements in the supernova explosion. Strangely, no hydrogen was detected in the region of SN 2013ge, leaving scientists to guess at how the gas might have been stripped away before the explosion occurred.

More:
https://www.space.com/hubble-space-telescope-supernova-companion-star