Supernovas are difficult to recognize. Scientists have just found a way to recognize them hours after their explosion

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The early stages of a supernova explosion are apparently going in what you can reveal about stars. But while she caught her immediately after the detonate, the astronomers have now proven to be largely difficult to grasp, and now believed that they have developed a foolproof way of recognizing a young supernova.

Although we know what kind of star Supernova will go, we cannot predict when a star in a distant galaxy could explode. In the past it was at pure luck whether we looked in the right direction at the right time to see A Supernova Only hours after it inflates.

Large surveys that scan the entire night sky every few days have the chances of going out, but now the challenge that astronomers are confronted is discovered a young supernova under the large amount of data collecting these surveys. In order to overcome this problem, very specific protocols based on strict criteria are required to recognize early supernova. “The earlier we see it, the better,” said Lluís Galbany from the Institute of Space Sciences in Barcelona, who headed research, in one opinion.

Two types of Stars Explode as a supernova. The first guy is White dwarfsThe remains of are Sun-Alable stars. As soon as your mass over the 1.44 times it grows Mass of our sunknown as the Chandrasekhar borderThey explode as supernova. This happens when you steal or collide the matter from a tight companion star and can merge with another white dwarf.

The other type of star that goes Supernova is a Giant star With a mass at least eight times higher than the sun. When such a star goes out Nuclear fuelHis core breaks down to form A Neutron starWhile his outer layers bounce off and explode to the outside.

The Galbany team used the currently largest optical telescope in the world, the 10.4-meter gran-gran telescopio de Canaria on the Canaric Islands, to pursue 10 early supernova explosions. Five were massive core stars, and five were the detonation of white dwarfs. Most were discovered within six days of the explosion, and a couple was less than 48 hours young.

These ten were found by following a specific protocol. First, a candidate in the early supernova in the pictures of the previous night must be missing to guarantee that we see it in his earliest phase. Second, the new object has to be seen in a galaxy so that we do not confuse another transient object, e.g. Milky Way GalaxyOr a fluctuating quasarFor a supernova. When both conditions are met, the detection instrument (optical system for imaging and integrated spectroscopy with a low disorder) talks into life at the Gran Telescopio de Canarias to measure every supernova range.

“A supernova spectrum tells us, for example, whether the star contained hydrogen, which means that we look at a core collapse Supernova,” said Galbany. “If we know about Supernova in their earliest moments, we can also search for other types of data to the same object.”

The first hours and days of a supernova can tell astronomers a lot about the star, which has exploded and how it exploded. In particular, one of the things that astronomers are looking for is referred to as a “shock outbreak”. This is a short flash because the Supernova shock wave breaks through the outer layer of the star. The details of this lightning show whether the explosion is asymmetrical, which in turn is related to the interior structure of the star, the size of the star and its surface composition.

In the meantime, Supernova creates a short -lived “flash spectrum” when the explosion wave in advance flames exploding material shells that are expelled by a star. This shows which gases are in the bowls that were until recently part of the star itself. The flash spectrum also helps the astronomers to imagine the wider surroundings to imagine the star, who can teach us the regions of the room, produce the stars that go supernova. And bumps in the early light curve of a supernova could indicate the presence of a close companion – a nearby star. Brown dwarf or giant planet – That is involved in the fire.

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory It is ideally placed to discover early supernovas if it becomes fully functional before the end of 2025. An estimated ten million warnings are issued every night by Rubin, a mixture of variable stars. AsteroidQuasare, outstanding torches, transiting exoplanets and supernovas. There are nine brokers that can then be used to filter these ten million warnings to the protocol developed by Galbany team of an astronomer selected criteria.

Galbany believes that it will be possible to recognize supernovas under 24 hours routinely, which could have a transformative effect on our understanding of exploding stars.

“We now know that a spectroscopic program reacts quickly that is well coordinated with deep photometric surveys, can realistically collect spectra within one day after the explosion and pave the way for systematic studies of the earliest phases in the upcoming major surveys,” he said.

The conclusions of Galbany’s team were Published on August 19th in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics.