“ It really is the most poetical thing I be intimate about physics : You are all stardust . ” -Lawrence Krauss
When stars explode , they scatter the elements they have been forge over billion of eld out across the Universe . Those elements are then used to create things like new stars , worldwide systems , elephants , and us . Shortly after the burst , a dusty haze forms around the supernova . It has not been whole clean-cut how this dust forms and how it is able to persist in such a turbulent environs .
An outside squad led by Christa Gall from Aarhus University in Denmark used the ESO ’s Very Large Telescope ( VLT ) and were able-bodied to witness the dust accumulating around a supernova , last throw off light on this secret . The results have been publish inNature .
Supernova SN2010jl , locate about 160 million years aside in the beetleweed UGC 5189A , was an fabulously lambent explosion that was project by the VLT in visible and good - IR wavelengths . Observations were made nine times over a few month after the supernova was detected , and a final notice was made two and a one-half year subsequently .
“ By combining the data from the nine other sets of observations we were able to make the first direct measurements of how the rubble around a supernova absorbs the unlike colours of brightness level , ” Gall say in apress release . “ This allowed us to find out more about the dust than had been potential before . ”
While the stardust first appear shortly after the explosion , it keep to organise for quite a while . Between 500 - 868 days after the oncoming of dust formation , it entered a second phase where dust set out to mold ten times more rapidly . The dust cloud is expected to continue to rise for the next few 10 , until is has about half the plenty of our Sun .
This study marks the first time that the onset of junk around a supernova was observed and was track over a long period of sentence . The squad was also able to determine how the grains of dust were capable to survive such a rough environment : their surprisingly large size . The grain were measured 1 - 4 micrometers , which does n’t seem all that vast , but is about 4 fourth dimension expectant than dust grains in the Milky Way . This gives astronomers answers they have been seeking for nearly 30 years .
“ Our detection of orotund grains presently after the supernova explosion mean that there must be a fast and effective way to create them , ” explained co - author Jens Hjorth . “ We really do n’t know on the nose how this happens . ”
The researchers believe that the dust may form from material had been ejected by the headliner before it exploded . When that material met the gas from the plosion ’s shockwave , which is obtuse and nerveless , it could very well have created the conditions needed for the dust to shape .
“ Previously astronomers have seen plenty of dust in supernova remnants left over after the blowup . But they also only found evidence for diminished sum of money of dust actually being create in the supernova explosion . These singular novel observations explain how this plain contradiction can be resolve , ” Gall concluded .
