New 3D Model Reveals Violent Death of Pre-Supernova Stars

Researchers have developed the first model that shows the initial stages of a supernova collapse in three dimensions, revealing fresh insights into the powerful death throes of the spent stars.

The new model suggests that there is no "calm before the storm" moment preceding a supernova explosion, but rather a continuous mess of matter being ejected from the star for years before it blows.

Writing in the journal AIP Advances, the model's developers, W. David Arnett, Casey Meakin and Nathan Smith of the University of Arizona and Maxime Viallet of the Max-Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Germany, report how a violent mixing of elements inside star in its final moments causes them to expand, contract, and spit out matter before they finally detonate.

The 3-D model developed by the researchers provides detail into this process in a way never seen before.

Previous models were unable to detail the initial stages of a supernova as accurately because of they were limited by the processing power of computers. Researchers theorized what would happen to the flow of matter in the third dimension to make the models more manageable, so that they could be processed by supercomputers.

The older models could also not explain why material ejected from the star as it exploded appeared to mix with material previously ejected by the star.

The new 3-D model reveals a messy event prior to the supernova. In its final moments leading up to the explosion, the star violently spits out star remnants. With the new model, the researchers are able to see how this pre-supernova discharge interacts with the expelled star mater once the supernova finally occurs.

"We see those ejections of star material, and how they mix with material expelled from the star during its final explosion. Other models cannot explain this," Arnett said.

"Instead of going gently into that dark night, it is fighting. It is sputtering and spitting off material. This can take a year or two. There are small precursor events, several peaks, and then the big explosion," he continued.

"Perhaps we need is a more sophisticated notion of what an explosion is to explain what we are seeing," Arnett said.