Original observation of transient SCP 06F6 by discovery team Barbary et al. with Hubble Space Telescope
Credit: Hubble Space Telescope
ENGLAND: A mystery explosion recorded by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2006 was the first of a whole new class of supernova, say astronomers from the University of Warwick, UK.
The explosion showed some odd characteristics, which caused researchers to struggle understanding the nature of the explosion.
The astronomers who detected the event were not sure whether it happened in our cosmic neighbourhood or at the edge of the universe. And, unusually, the object (also known as SCP 06F6) was located in an empty part of the sky and has no visible host galaxy.
But a group of astronomers in the U.K. now believe the explosion could have been caused by the death of a 'carbon star'.
No ordinary supernova
A supernova is the explosion of a star, resulting in its death, and it's one of the highest energy events in the universe. There are several different conditions for stars to end their lives in a supernova, but the result is almost always the core of the star collapses, sending huge amounts of radiation through space and a shockwave through the interstellar medium.
This mysterious explosion emitted around a hundred times more X-ray energy than an average supernova, suggesting that something different was happening. One previous theory was that the star was ripped apart by a black hole rather than exploding on its own.
Lead researcher from Warwick, Dr Boris Gänsicke said, "The lack of any obvious host galaxy for SCP 06F6 would imply either a very low black hole mass ... or that the black hole has somehow been ejected from its host galaxy.
"While neither is impossible this does make the case for disruption by a black hole somewhat contrived." The new findings were detailed last month in Astrophysics Journal Letters.
A big carbon footprint
The answer to the mystery may lie in the composition of the star. SCP 06F6 shows an extremely large proportion of carbon and researchers from Warwick believe that the sudden death of a very carbon-rich star has caused the unusual observations.
Astrophysicist Professor Mark Birkinshaw, from University of Bristol, UK, is sceptical: "SCP 06F6 is a genuine oddity but I'm not convinced by the supernova idea, though it is possible – the universe is often better at cooking up strange physical situations than we are at diagnosing them.
"It will be very interesting to see how many more of these types of objects show up as we continue to look for transient phenomena in the sky."
Dr Boris Gänsicke also thinks that SCP 06F6 is not a one off occurrence. He said, "Several new telescopes are now being designed and built that will continuously monitor the entire sky for short guest appearances of new stars, and there is no doubt that SCP 06F6 will not remain alone in puzzling astronomers over the coming years."
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SCP06F6 Transient -oriented black hole ejection plume?
Earlier reports of this transient were that there were no coherent spectral lines which meant that the atomic composition and red shift could not be measured, thus the distance could not be estimated.
This report of the highly energetic X ray component perhaps supports the above model.The material of the supposed plume may be too energetic to be organized into recognisable atoms.If the plume was pointed directly at us the apparant brightness might be of the observed order.
The apparant anomaly of no supporting galaxy could possibly be that the galaxy is too distant to be visible as the Hubble deep field apparantly shows galaxies continuing beyond our present ability to detect.
I guess that the Webb instrument might reveal the parent galaxy if it can be seen with the improved light gathering capability.
As a layman these new findings are very exciting and I envy the professionals who get to play with such toys!
Best Wishes Ron Horgan