PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Novel supernova observations grant astronomers a peek into the cosmic past

New study details stellar evolution during the early universe

2024-11-25
(Press-News.org) COLUMBUS, Ohio – An international team of researchers has made new observations of an unusual supernova, finding the most metal-poor stellar explosion ever observed. 

This rare supernova, called 2023ufx, originated from the core collapse of a red supergiant star, exploded on the outskirts of a nearby dwarf galaxy. Results of the study showed that observations of both this supernova and the galaxy it was discovered in are of low metallicity, meaning they lack an abundance of elements heavier than hydrogen or helium.

Since the metals produced within supernovae inform their properties, including how stars evolve and die, learning more about their formation can tell astronomers much about the state of the universe when it began, especially since there were essentially no metals around during the time of its birth, said Michael Tucker, lead author of the study and a fellow at the Center for Cosmology and AstroParticle Physics at The Ohio State University.

“If you’re someone who wants to predict how the Milky Way came to be, you want to have a good idea of how the first exploding stars seeded the next generation,” said Tucker. “Understanding that gives scientists a great example of how those first objects affected their surroundings.”

Dwarf galaxies in particular are useful local analogs to conditions scientists might expect to see in the early universe. Because of them, astronomers know that while the first galaxies were metal-poor, all the big, bright galaxies near the Milky Way had plenty of time for stars to explode and increase the amount of metal content, said Tucker.  

The amount of metals a supernova has also influences aspects like the number of nuclear reactions it may have or how long its explosion remains bright. It’s also one of the reasons that many low-mass stars also occasionally run the risk of collapsing into black holes. 

The study was published recently in The Astrophysical Journal.

While the event observed by Tucker’s team is only the second supernova to be found with low metallicity, what’s most unusual about it is its location relative to the Milky Way, said Tucker. 

Typically, any metal-poor supernova that astronomers would expect to find would likely be too faint to see from our galaxy because of how far away they are. Now, due to the advent of more powerful instruments like NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, detecting distant metal-poor galaxies has been made exponentially easier. 

“There are not that many metal-poor locations in the nearby universe and before JWST, it was difficult to find them,” said Tucker. 

But the sighting of 2023ufx turned out to be a happy accident for researchers. New-found observations of this particular supernova revealed that many of its properties and behaviors are distinctly different from other supernovae in nearby galaxies. 

For example, this supernova had a period of brightness that stayed steady for about 20 days before declining, whereas the brightness of its metal-rich counterparts usually lasted for about 100 days. The study also showed that a large amount of fast-moving material was ejected during the explosion, suggesting that it must have been spinning very quickly when it exploded. 

This result implies that rapidly spinning metal-poor stars must have been relatively common during the early days of the universe, said Tucker. His team’s theory is that the supernova likely had weak stellar winds – streams of particles emitted from the atmosphere of the star – which led it to cultivate and release so much energy. 

Overall, their observations lay the groundwork for astronomers to better investigate how metal-poor stars survive in different cosmic environments, and may even help some theorists more accurately model how supernovae behaved in the early universe. 

“If you’re someone who wants to predict how galaxies form and evolve, the first thing you want is a good idea of how the first exploding stars influenced their local area,” said Tucker. 

Future research may aim to determine if the supernova was larger at one point, whether just by being a super-massive star or if its materials were stripped away by a still undiscovered binary companion. 

Until then, researchers will have to wait for more data to become available. 

“We’re so early in the JWST era that we’re still finding so many things we don’t understand about galaxies,” said Tucker. “The long-term hope is that this study acts as a benchmark for similar discoveries.”

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation, the European Research Council (ERC), the Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA), and NASA. Christopher S. Kochanek from Ohio State was also a co-author. 

#

Contact: Michael Tucker, Tucker.957@osu.edu

Written by: Tatyana Woodall, Woodall.52@osu.edu

END


ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Association of severe maternal morbidity with subsequent birth

2024-11-25
About The Study: The findings of this study suggest that women who experience severe maternal morbidity in their first birth are less likely to have a subsequent birth. Adequate reproductive counseling and enhancing antenatal care are crucial for women with a history of severe maternal morbidity. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Eleni Tsamantioti, MD, MMedSc, email eleni.tsamantioti@ki.se. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jama.2024.20957) Editor’s ...

Herodotus' theory on Armenian origins debunked by first whole-genome study

2024-11-25
Armenians, a population in Western Asia historically inhabiting the Armenian highlands, were long believed to be descendants of Phrygian settlers from the Balkans. This theory originated largely from the accounts of the Greek historian Herodotus, who observed that Armenians were armed in Phrygian fashion when serving in the Persian army. Linguists further supported this theory, suggesting that the Armenian language shares ties with the Thraco-Phrygian subgroup of Indo-European languages. But the first whole-genome study is challenging this long-held belief, revealing no significant genetic link between ...

Women who suffer pregnancy complications have fewer children

2024-11-25
Women who suffer severe complications during their first pregnancy or delivery are less inclined to have more babies, a study published in JAMA by researchers at Karolinska Institutet reports. Given the recent steady decline in birth rate in Sweden, the researchers propose monitoring in antenatal care to address the problem. “The clinical monitoring of these women is essential, and they need individualised advice on possible future pregnancies,” says the study’s first author Eleni Tsamantioti, doctoral student at the Department of Medicine in Solna, Karolinska Institutet. Birth rates and fertility have both been in steady decline ...

Home testing kits and coordinated outreach substantially improve colorectal cancer screening rates

Home testing kits and coordinated outreach substantially improve colorectal cancer screening rates
2024-11-25
CHAPEL HILL, North Carolina—Colorectal cancer screening is an effective tool for catching the disease early when it's most treatable, yet it is underutilized in patient populations who receive primary care at federally qualified health centers (FQHC). A new study by researchers at UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center demonstrated that a targeted intervention can substantially increase screening rates in patients who are not current with recommended screening.  The researchers report in JAMA Network Open that mailing at-home ...

COVID-19 vaccine reactogenicity among young children

2024-11-25
About The Study: No unexpected reactions were identified in this analysis of reactions to COVID-19 vaccines among children. Similar to this study, data from clinical trials and V-safe found that irritability was the most common systemic reaction among children ages 6 months to younger than 2 years, followed by fever and fatigue or sleepiness. In contrast to other studies observing a higher prevalence of reactions after the second COVID-19 vaccine dose, this study observed a higher prevalence after the first dose. This difference may reflect maternal vaccination; the ...

Generalizability of clinical trials of novel weight loss medications to the US adult population

2024-11-25
About The Study: This study estimates that approximately one-third of U.S. adults without diabetes who were eligible for weight loss treatment with glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) and glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GLP-1/GIP) were excluded from clinical trials supporting these medications’ safety and effectiveness. Until there is evidence from high-quality postmarketing studies, the FDA should consider updating labeling to advise caution on generalizing the safety and effectiveness of GLP-1 and GLP-1/GIP to populations excluded from pivotal trials. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Timothy S. Anderson, MD, MAS, email tsander@pitt.edu. To ...

Wildfire smoke exposure and incident dementia

2024-11-25
About The Study: In this cohort study, after adjusting for measured confounders, long-term exposure to wildfire and non-wildfire fine particulate matter (PM2.5) over a 3-year period was associated with dementia diagnoses. As the climate changes, interventions focused on reducing wildfire PM2.5 exposure may reduce dementia diagnoses and related inequities. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Joan A. Casey, PhD, email jacasey@uw.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For ...

Health co-benefits of China's carbon neutrality policies highlighted in new review

2024-11-25
Researchers from the National Institute of Health Data Science at Peking University have conducted a comprehensive review of the health impacts of China's carbon mitigation strategies. Published in Health Data Science, this review emphasizes the significant health co-benefits of environmental policies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions in China, the world's largest carbon emitter. These benefits include reducing deaths and diseases related to air pollution, particularly from PM2.5 and ozone (O3), as well as mitigating climate-related ...

Key brain circuit for female sexual rejection uncovered

Key brain circuit for female sexual rejection uncovered
2024-11-25
A team from the Champalimaud Foundation (CF) has pinpointed a critical neural circuit for sexual rejection, identifying a set of brain cells that play a crucial role in determining whether a female accepts or rejects mating attempts based on her reproductive cycle. Their findings, published today in Neuron, deepen our understanding of how the brain regulates social and reproductive behaviours. Female mammals, such as rodents, accept mating attempts only during their fertile phase, and actively reject males outside this period. While the brain areas controlling sexual receptivity are well-studied, the mechanisms behind active rejection ...

Electrical nerve stimulation eases long COVID pain and fatigue

Electrical nerve stimulation eases long COVID pain and fatigue
2024-11-25
A wearable electrical nerve stimulation device can provide relief to people experiencing the persistent pain and fatigue linked to long COVID, a study co-led by UCLA and Baylor College of Medicine researchers suggests. Long-COVID, a complex and lingering condition following COVID-19 recovery, affects approximately 1 in 13 adults in the U.S. Symptoms such as widespread pain, fatigue, and muscle weakness often continue to disrupt daily activities, including walking and basic tasks. The study, published in the peer-reviewed Nature Scientific Reports, focused on a wearable Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Empowering older adults with home-care robots

New concept for sustainable fuel cell polymer electrolytes overcomes barriers in high-temperature, low-humidity use, advancing net-zero carbon goals

Sculpting the brain (without chisel or scalpel)

Wrong trees in the wrong place can make cities hotter at night, study reveals

New gene therapy reverses heart failure in large animal model

Young children less likely than adults to see discrimination as harmful

Tiny poops in the ocean may help solve the carbon problem

Study offers insight into chloroplast evolution

Advancing the synthesis of two-dimensional gold monolayers

Human disruption is driving ‘winner’ and ‘loser’ tree species shifts across Brazilian forests

A novel heme-model compound that treats lethal gas poisoning

Shape-changing device helps visually impaired people perform location task as well as sighted people - EMBARGO: Tuesday 10 December (10:00 UK time)

AI predicts that most of the world will see temperatures rise to 3°C much faster than previously expected

Second round of FRONTIERS Science Journalism Residency Program awards grants to ten journalists

The inequity of wildfire rescue resources in California

Aerosol pollutants from cooking may last longer in the atmosphere – new study

Breakthrough in the precision engineering of four-stranded β-sheets

Family income predicts adult problems more than neighborhood poverty

Leading stress expert Ron de Kloet on hormone's dual nature: From protection to harm

Almost half of young vapers are able to stop with quitline help

After a divisive election, most U.S. adults ready to avoid politics this holiday

Food insecurity in LA County remains well above national average, despite slight decline

People with a positive attitude are built differently

AML, sickle cell disease research among highlights of UC ASH abstracts

Dozens of presentations advance multiple myeloma research at the 2024 American Society for Hematology (ASH) meeting

ASH 2024: Study shows that genetic mutations accumulate in smokers with myelodysplastic syndromes and worsen outcomes

Nature inspires self-assembling helical polymer

Could US-style summer holiday programs boost Aussie kids’ health?

Towards safer, higher performance batteries through network topology optimization

ASH: Triplet combination regimens demonstrate high response rates in multiple leukemias

[Press-News.org] Novel supernova observations grant astronomers a peek into the cosmic past
New study details stellar evolution during the early universe