After 37 years, scientists have finally cracked a cosmic ‘murder mystery’ that even Poirot or Miss Marple would have struggled with.
And unravelling what happened to this ‘super-star’ victim took more than asking the butler a few cutting questions.
In 1987, scientists watched as a star 160,000 light years from Earth exploded in the brightest supernova in 400 years.
What was left behind by the cataclysmic Supernova 1987A has been hidden by thick clouds of dust ever since.
But now, an international team of scientists has used the James Webb Telescope to find evidence of a neutron star left behind by the explosion.
Scientists have solved a 37-year-old cosmic ‘murder mystery’ as they reveal what was left behind after the explosion of Supernova 1987A (pictured)
An international team of researchers found evidence of a neutron star at the heart of the supernova material. It was known that there was a compact object there (pictured) but it had remained hidden behind clouds of debris
Supernovae are caused by the collapse of stars between eight and 10 times the mass of our sun.
As these massive stars collapse in on themselves, the surface is pulled in so fast that they create powerful shockwaves which cause the outer layers to explode.
The explosions are the origins of all the carbon, oxygen, silicon, and iron that are vital for the development of life.
Occasionally, these stellar death throes leave behind a core of unbelievably hot and dense material which can form a black hole if the star was large enough.
More commonly this leaves behind a neutron star, an object no more than 13 miles (20km) across and composed largely of subatomic particles called neutrons.
Neutron stars are so dense that a sugar cube of neutron star material would weigh one billion tons on Earth – about as much as a mountain.
In February 1987, scientists spotted a supernova within the Large Magellanic Cloud, a neighbouring dwarf galaxy, burning with the intensity of 100 suns.
Supernova 1987A was so bright that it could be seen from Earth for months and was even visible to the naked eye.
The Supernova 1987A was the brightest supernova visible from Earth for over 400 years. Located in the Large Magellanic Cloud (pictured) a neighbouring galaxy, it was so bright that it could even be seen by the naked eye
This earlier photo taken by the Hubble Space Telescope shows the ring of hotter material (in white) around a core which is hidden by dust
Scientists have long suspected that a neutron star was left behind by the blast, but there was so much dust left behind that even the most powerful telescopes couldn’t confirm this.
But now, a team of researchers say they have found the first evidence that there is a neutron star lurking within the debris.
BBC Sky at Night presenter Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock said the research team had ‘solved a murder mystery’.
She added: ‘It is about the death of a star and the mystery has been what lies in the shrouds of dust around what remains.’
Using two instruments aboard the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), a team of scientists looked at the infrared wavelengths of light coming from the area of the supernova
They found that there were heavy argon and sulphur atoms whose outer electrons had been stripped away.
By modelling how these atoms could have got there, the researchers found that they could have only been created by a neutron star.
Researchers used the James Webb Space Telescope to look at the infrared radiation emitted by the ejected material. They found the presence of Argon (pictured) and sulphur atoms which had been stripped of their outer electrons
Professor Mike Barlow, an astronomer from UCL and co-author on the study, said: ‘Our data can only be fitted with a neutron star as the power source of that ionising radiation.’
The researchers have two theories of how this could have come about.
Professor Barlow explained: ‘This radiation can be emitted from the million degree surface of the hot neutron star, as well as by a pulsar wind nebula that could have been created if the neutron star is rapidly spinning and dragging charged particles around it.’
As neutron stars collapse in on themselves they heat up to billions of degrees at the surface.
The researchers believe that the argon and sulphur atoms could only have been stripped of their electrons by a neutron star hidden in the centre of Supernova 1987A (pictured)
As they cool, this energy is emitted into the universe in the form of massive amounts of ultraviolet and X-ray radiation.
But if a neutron star is spinning, it will actually drag ‘winds’ of relativistic particles around itself which could interact with the surrounding supernova material.
An example of this kind of force can be seen in the Crab Nebula which is the remnant of a supernova observed by Chinese astronomers in 1054.
In either case, the scientists now have a strong indication that a neutron star must be present.
Professor Barlow added: ‘The mystery over whether a neutron star is hiding in the dust has lasted for more than 30 years and it is exciting that we have solved it.’
The Crab Nebula (pictured) is a good example of how a spinning neutron star can create a ‘wind’ of particles that interact with material from the supernova
Lead author on the paper, Professor Claes Fransson of Stockholm University said: ‘Thanks to the superb spatial resolution and excellent instruments on JWST we have, for the first time, been able to probe the centre of the supernova and what was created there.’
Scientists had suspected a neutron star might be present because, on February 23 1987, scientists detected a pulse of neutrinos passing through Earth.
These fast-moving, weakly interacting particles reached Earth a day before the supernova was first seen and potentially indicated that a neutron star had formed.
This was the first supernova to be detected by its neutrinos, which make up 99.9 per cent of all the energy emitted during the explosion.
Even though a vast amount of neutrinos were emitted, three detectors on Earth only managed to capture about 20 as they passed.
Professor Fransson added that scientists had long thought that a neutron star was responsible for this pulse but they ‘had to wait for JWST to be able to verify the predictions.’
This post first appeared on Dailymail.co.uk
