Champagne for a new supernova

Astronomers from the University of Warwick believe that a mystery stellar explosion during 2006 was the death of a ‘carbon star’ and may be a totally new class of supernova.

The object known as SCP 06F6 was spotted by the Hubble Space Telescope when it appeared for 120 days in 2006. The observations were unusual in that it was difficult to predict whether the event happened in our cosmic neighbourhood or at the other end of the universe.

The team from Warwick realised that the answer to the problem may lie in the composition of the star. SCP 06F6 has a large proportion of carbon and its redshift leads them to believe that it was about 2 billion light years away. Unusually, SCP 06F6 was located in a blank part of the sky with no visible host galaxy. When it went supernova it emitted 100 times more x-ray energy than would be expected from a normal type II supernova suggesting something different was going on.

“The lack of any obvious host galaxy for SCP 06F6 would imply either a very low black hole mass (if black holes do exist at the centres of dwarf irregular galaxies) 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,” said lead research from Warwick, Boris Gänsicke. “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.”

By Leila Sattary