For the first time ever, the explosive death of a supergiant star has been caught on video as scientists watched the phenomenon in real-time.
The footage was captured by two telescopes at the Keck Observatory in Hawaii.
"For the very first time, astronomers have imaged in real time the dramatic end to a red supergiant's life, watching the massive star's rapid self-destruction and final death throes before it collapsed into a Type II supernova," the observatory said in a statement.
The scientists presented their findings in The Astrophysical Journal, calling it a "breakthrough" in the understanding of how the massive stars die.
"Direct detection of pre-supernova activity in a red supergiant star has never been observed before in an ordinary Type II supernova," lead author Wynn Jacobson-Galán said in a statement. "For the first time, we watched a red supergiant star explode!"
The doomed massive star was discovered in the summer of 2020 due to the "huge amount of light radiating from the red supergiant." A few months later, a supernova lit the sky in its deadly destruction.
The team was able to capture the powerful flash using Keck Observatory's Low Resolution Imaging Spectrometer. The footage changes what scientists have thought for years -- that red supergiants fade slowly and die quietly.
Instead, the research team said their findings show that the massive stars violently spew radiation and gas before collapsing and exploding.
"It's like watching a ticking time bomb," senior author Raffaella Margutti said in a statement. "We've never confirmed such violent activity in a dying red supergiant star where we see it produce such a luminous emission, then collapse and combust, until now."
Researchers say the discovery paves a path to hunt for more evidence on how massive stars spend the final moments of their lives.
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