Australian scientists claim to have solved the mystery of an ancient red giant’s chemical makeup by inventing an entirely new way for a star to explode. Hypernova
Thirteen billion years ago, in the depths of the Milky Way, an ancient star began to collapse.
Professor Gary Da Costa, an astronomer at the Australian National University and one of the authors on the study, said current star formation models simply could not explain the existence of the ancient red giant star filled with unusual elements such as zinc, uranium and possibly gold. Another option: neutron star mergers, where remnants of the cores of collapsed super-giant stars collide and produce an enriched star. But they did not make enough of the heavy elements present in this star, said Professor Da Costa.“We had to come up with a new way of making the heavier elements, and that seems to be best in what’s called a magneto-rotational hypernova,” Professor Da Costa said.
“It’s an observational confirmation of the fact that these very heavy elements are created in different pathways than what we’ve traditionally seen in our observations,” she said.