The Hubble telescope mission team has published a new image. It shows the galaxy IC 758, which holds an “explosive” secret.
IC 758 is located 60 million light-years from Earth toward the constellation of Ursa Major. Like our Milky Way, it is classified as a spiral galaxy with a junction. The Hubble image shows its soft spiral arms curving gently around its hazy barred centre. It is a source of powerful radiation in all ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum, indicating that it contains an active supermassive black hole.
But that is far from the only secret of the IC 758. Although it looks serene in the photo, it’s not. In 1999, astronomers observed a massive explosion. Its source was a supernova, designated SN 1999bg.
SN 1999bg was formed as a result of the death of a star whose mass far exceeded that of the Sun. When such luminaries exhaust the hydrogen “fuel”, in their nuclei are initiated processes of core compression with the subsequent synthesis of heavier elements: oxygen, neon, magnesium, silicon, sulfur, and so on, up to iron, cobalt, and nickel. As soon as the synthesis of the heaviest elements in this series requires more energy than is released during gravitational compression, collapse occurs, accompanied by the release of a colossal amount of energy, called a supernova explosion.
At the moment, scientists do not know how massive the star that gave birth to SN 1999bg was. The researchers hope that Hubble data will help them find an answer to this question, and also show whether it had companion stars.
A supernova explosion is not just the death of a single, albeit large, star. It is also a powerful force that can change the surrounding space. For example, it can scatter and heat nearby gas clouds, preventing the formation of new stars, or conversely, compress them, triggering a burst of star formation.
Moreover, when a giant star collapses, its heavy element-rich matter is ejected into the surrounding space. Over time, it becomes part of the interstellar clouds that give rise to a new generation of stars. If it were not for the heavy elements formed as a result of the death of previous stars, our Earth would never have formed, and we would not be able to exist.
According to Esahubble
