Explosion Imminent: Massive Stars Sound Warning They Are About To Go Supernova

Betelgeuse Supernova Illustration

An artist’s impression of Betelgeuse’s supernova. Credit: European Southern Observatory/L. Calçada

Astronomers from Liverpool John Moores University and the University of Montpellier have devised an ‘early warning’ system to sound the alert when a massive star is about to end its life in a supernova explosion. The work was published today (October 13, 2022) in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

In this new study, investigators determined that massive stars (typically between 8 and 20 solar masses) in the last phase of their lives, the so-called ‘red supergiant’ phase, will suddenly become around a hundred times fainter in visible light in the last few months before they die. This dimming is caused by a sudden accumulation of material around the star, which obscures its light.

Red supergiants are stars of spectral type K or M with a supergiant luminosity class (Yerkes class I). In terms of volume, they are the largest stars in the universe. However, they are not the most massive or luminous. Betelgeuse and Antares are the brightest and best-known red supergiants.

Until now, it was not known how long it took the star to accrete this material. For the first time, scientists have now simulated how red supergiants might look when they are embedded within these pre-explosion ‘cocoons’.

Old telescope archives show that images do exist of stars that went on to explode around a year after the image was taken. The stars appear as normal in these images, meaning they cannot yet have built up the theoretical circumstellar cocoon. This suggests that the cocoon is assembled in less than a year, which is considered to be extremely fast.

Benjamin Davies from Liverpool John Moores University, and lead author of the paper, says “The dense material almost completely obscures the star, making it 100 times fainter in the visible part of the spectrum. This means that, the day before the star explodes, you likely wouldn’t be able to see it was there.” He adds, “Until now, we’ve only been able to get detailed observations of supernovae hours after they’ve already happened. With this early-warning system we can get ready to observe them real-time, to point the world’s best telescopes at the precursor stars, and watch them getting literally ripped apart in front of our eyes.”

Reference: “Explosion imminent: the appearance of red supergiants at the point of core-collapse” by Ben Davies, Bertrand Plez and Mike Petrault, 13 October 2022, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stac2427

9 Comments on "Explosion Imminent: Massive Stars Sound Warning They Are About To Go Supernova"

  1. very inbormative article

  2. When the initial universe was “created” in the “quark-gluon plasma” state and it cooled to the first hydrogen, the theory forced science to assume how the stars were created. Gravity was forced to be the energy that made a harmless cloud turn into a star.

    But that’s only the beginning of the assumptions. How were all the elements going to be made? Science had to figure that problem out through the big bang theory. That’s when supernovae were forced to be assumed. The energy needed for nucleosynthesis had to come from somewhere. That’s why science had to make stars explode. They had no choice just like they have no choice but to assume fusion must work. On top of that, to explain why black holes exist so early in the universe, they made larger stars burn quicker than smaller ones so they can blow up to create the black holes that aren’t explained. The Lambda-CDM model is nothing but a big ad-hoc nightmare.

    The problem is that not one supernovae witnessed has ever happened with a star that supposedly has the characteristics of a star that is about to go supernova. SN 1987a is a perfect example. It was a blue star. Even Betelgeuse started darkening making everyone think it was going to explode but then got lighter again.

    The Big Bang theory has created this series of situations that are assumed to be true because the Big Bang theory forces them to have to be true. The theory is nothing but ad-hoc theories that are made to make the theory work. That is why so much remains to be understood. No amount of time will ever solve these mysteries with the big bang theory around.

    A black hole is absolute minimum entropy matter. This plasma uses the matter that creates the force of gravity as its endless catalyst. Fusion has no such catalyst except for all the electricity scientists can possibly pump into it which eventually cools it off unexpectedly.

    Quark plasma creates all the naturally occurring elements all by itself from the outside of the mass inward. Space is made of an extremely pressurized, absolute zero field of sterile electron neutrinos and black holes are made of nothing but quarks. Once quarks have been separated from a sufficient enough reaction, it is the sheer density and pressure of the field of space that overcomes the strong force between these two particles and keeps the quarks apart indefinitely. As a result, the strong force ejects the incoming neutrinos out of the reaction as gamma rays. The most powerful objects in the universe are going to emit the most powerful electromagnetic radiation. That is obvious.

    This is when the elements in our universe are created. Eventually, the quarks and sterile electron neutrinos begin to fuse on the surface to create the first neutrons, and optically visible light, the black hole will possess. Then, once enough neutrons have congregated on the surface, they begin to naturally break down into the first hydrogen the mass will see. At this point, the constantly forming neutrons fuse with the newly formed hydrogen to create the first helium the mass will possess using the beta minus decay reaction. This is the only form of nucleosynthesis of helium that exists in this universe. All nucleosynthesis requires energy and the creation of helium is no different.

    The beta minus decay reaction continues creating heavier elements making the star darker until the light is extinguished and a surface forms. This is when the atmosphere is allowed to develop since the surface is protected from the quark plasma energy just under the surface. This is when all the water on our planet was created in just the same fashion as a catalytic converter creates water with 800°F heat and hydrocarbons. It probably took a billion years for the Earth to create its water.

    This explanation is the one that explains the true life of matter. Plasma, gas, liquid, and solid is related to the life of matter as a black hole tuns into our Sun, the Sun turns into Jupiter, Jupiter turns into our planet, and our planet turns into the moon. Our solar system itself shows exactly how the entropy of matter takes place but current theories start everything as gas and dust when it really had all its energy from the very beginning. That’s the way the second law of thermodynamics works.

    When is the Royal Astronomical Society going to figure out what it takes to solve the massive problems of the universe like dark matter, dark energy, quantum gravity, the cosmological constant problem, and even supernovae? They don’t understand any of these problems but that doesn’t matter at all because their only goal is make sure that the religious theory put forth by Georges Lamaître stays a fact forever. Edwin Hubble, and many of his peers, never wanted anything to do with the expanding universe theory because it sounded too religious. Why wouldn’t it? How is a universe created when time doesn’t exist? As many people want to deny the Big Bang theory is religious, they can’t. The first law of thermodynamics states it is as religious, and consequently, as worthless, as a theory can be. Who are these people that ignore the whole reality of the situation and, yet, cannot explain one problem in our universe? How are the people at the Royal Astronomical Society able to be the “God’s of science” when everything they believe can’t explain anything at all? What kind of scientific community are we dealing with today? It is ludicrous.

  3. You’re right 👍 on with this one!

  4. Maqbool Nisar Ali beg | October 13, 2022 at 11:23 pm | Reply

    We still do not fully understand the atom and we claim to know how the galaxy’s were formed . Our scientists keep changing their views as to howthe universe came into being. Who wrote the dna code?. The fact of the matter is that humans have limited knowledge and therefore cannot and will never comprehend how all this happened.can a bacteria or virus residing in our body comprehend what a human being.

  5. I’m sorry to say early warning system ..it is already too late!! coz the sky is always in the past!!🤣😂

  6. Bonnie Woodruff | October 14, 2022 at 4:48 pm | Reply

    God has everything in control and to see the beauty in the heavens and on Earth is his creation. He has a plan and you’ll see it as it comes along.

  7. The god squad spreading fairytales again.

  8. Wrong! I witnessed one in 1980 traveling from Reno to Portland Oregon. Called around next day OMSI, Universities….no one knew what I was taking about. It was something to behold!

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