Data from the Hubble Space Telescope indicates that three supernovas have exploded outside other galaxies of stars, far away in the dark, empty intergalactic space. Taking into account the fact that they were very remote this means that the planets around the stars had almost starless skies.
A supernova is a star that explodes when its life has come to an end. They are often met inside galaxies which have billions of stars. What is special in this case is the fact that the stellar trio exploded hundreds of light years away from their closest neighbors.
The lead author of the study Melissa Graham from the University of California, Berkeley explained:
“The companion was either a lower-mass white dwarf that eventually got too close and was tragically fragmented into a ring that was cannibalized by the primary star, or a regular star from which the primary white dwarf star stole sips of gas from its outer layers.”
She also added that irrespective of the instance the transfer of material affected the primary star which became far too massive and consequently exploded as a Type Ia supernova.
Scientists have classified supernovas after the reason why the stars explode. Type Ia supernova takes place when a small star orbits a bigger one and the smaller one starts disintegrating. During the process of disintegration the bigger star feeds on the material of the small star. This indicates that the starts which explode could have a companion star in the void.
After the explosion any planet which might have orbited these stranded stars was most likely destroyed. Anyway according to Graham the sky seen from such a hypothetical planet would have been very different from the sky observed from our planet. The background would have been dark with only some occasional fuzzy and faint blobs coming from the closest brightest cluster galaxies.
Other types of explosions include Type II supernovas. This involves a star which has at least nine times the solar mass. When the star’s fuel runs out the star will explode because of the core collapse. Types 1b and 1c involve the same type of star. An extreme type of explosion is the hypernova. This phenomenon has an energy which is 50 times higher than other supernovas. An explosion with such energy can result in a black hole.
Image Source: Daily Mail
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