WR stars are massive stars and strip their outer hydrogen envelope, which is associated with the fusion of helium and other elements in the massive core. Tracking certain types of massive luminous supernova explosions can help investigate these stars that remain a mystery to scientists around the world.
The four Indian scientists from the Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES), Nainital, an autonomous institute under the Department of Science & Technology, and 16 scientists from different institutes in the US, UK, Canada, Ireland, Italy, Sweden and Korea have performed optical monitoring of one such stripped-envelope supernova, called SN 2015dj, hosted in the galaxy NGC 7371. They calculated the mass of the star that collapsed to form the supernovae, as well as the geometry of its ejection. The scientists also found that the original star was a combination of two stars – one of them is a massive WR star and another is a star much less in mass than the sun.
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Mridweeka Singh from South Korea, who was part of ARIES when the supernova discovery was made, said: “This supernova was discovered in 2015. We have observed the supernova for up to 170 days since its discovery. Then we submitted the manuscript in February last year and it was accepted on January 22 of this year. Now the article is available online and is being published. ”
Mridweeka, who moved to South Korea in 2019 after leaving the institute and currently works for the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute, said
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, “SN 2015dj is a type Ib supernova whose precursor was in a binary system with a mass between 13 and 20 M_zon. The explosion geometry was symmetrical for this supernova. The team’s discovery and detailed research was recently published in ‘The Astrophysical Journal
Supernovae (SNe) are highly energetic explosions in the universe that release a tremendous amount of energy. Long-term monitoring of these transients opens the door to understanding the nature of the exploding star and its explosive properties. It can also help enumerate the number of massive stars.
Long-term monitoring of these transients opens the door to understanding the nature of the exploding star and its explosive properties. It can also help enumerate the number of massive stars.