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Credit & Copyright: R. Elson and R. Sword
(IoA Cambridge),
NASA
Explanation:
This is NGC 1818,
a youthful, glittering cluster
of 20,000 stars residing in the
Large Magellanic Cloud,
164,000 light-years away.
Pick a star. Any star.
Astronomers might pick the unassuming bluish-white one (circled)
which appears to be a hot newly formed white dwarf star.
What makes it so interesting?
The
standard astronomical wisdom
suggests that stars over 5 times
as massive as the sun rapidly exhaust
their nuclear fuel and end their lives in a
spectacular supernova explosion.
With less than this critical mass they evolve into
red giants, pass through a relatively
peaceful planetary nebula phase,
and calmly fade away as
white dwarf stars like this one.
Except that as a member of the NGC 1818 cluster,
this new white dwarf would have evolved from
a red giant star
over 7.6 times as massive as the sun - which should have exploded!
Its discovery
will likely force astronomers to revise the
limiting mass estimate for supernovae upward.
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A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: white dwarf
Publications with words: white dwarf
See also: