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Mysterious Star Survives a Thermonuclear Supernova Explosion

A Tenacious Star Validates a Revised Model of Supernovae

A supernova is the cataclysmic explosion of a star. Thermonuclear supernovae, in particular, signal the complete destruction of a white dwarf star, leaving nothing behind. At least that’s what astrophysics models and observations suggested.

So when a team of astronomers went to examine the site of the peculiar thermonuclear supernova SN 2012Z with the Hubble Space Telescope, they were shocked to discover that the star had survived the explosion. Not only had it survived, but the star was actually even brighter after the supernova than it had been before. First author Curtis McCully, a postdoctoral researcher at University of California, Santa Barbara and Las Cumbres Observatory, presented these findings at a press conference at the 240th meeting of the American Astronomical Society and published them in an article in The Astrophysical Journal. The puzzling results provide new information about the origins of some of the most common, yet mysterious, explosions in the universe.

These thermonuclear supernovae, known as Type Ia supernovae, are some of the most important tools in astronomers’ toolkits for measuring cosmic distances. Beginning in 1998, observations of these explosions revealed that the universe has been expanding at an ever-accelerating rate. This is thought to be due to dark energy, the discovery of which won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2011.  …