Extremely resilient star survives a giant supernova explosion

This is a story of survival.

The Hubble Space Telescope found evidence that a star is still after its companion star exploded.

NASA explained that the exploded star did not destroy its companion. Unlike the sun, most stars have companions.

The graphic shows what happened in boxes. The boxes show what likely will happen next, with two exploded stars in box 6.

1. Two stars are in a star system.

2. A red giant is formed when a bloated star collapses on itself. The companion star used gravity to remove its outer layers of gases.

3. A giant star explodes. The star sustains the blast.

An artist's conception of a star surviving a supernova explosion from its companion star (box 3). Credit: NASA / ESA / Leah Hustak (STScI)

Something unusual was happening with this supernova. One source of brightness from the explosions is usually detected by telescopes. There were two peaks of brightness. It was thought to be a shock wave hitting the companion star. They have spotted light emissions from the secondary source, which they think is the surviving star, as the explosion fades in brightness.

Ori Fox, a Hubble researcher, told NASA that the stellar survivor was jiggled like a bowl of jello. The star will eventually return to its pre-explosion form.

The exploded star will become 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 after collapsing. It will either be a black hole or a neutron star, which is an object so dense that a sugar cube-sized amount of material would weigh more than 1 billion tons.

There is a chance that the surviving star and its collapsed companion will continue to circle each other. The star will collapse one day. They could collide in the future and create ripples in spacetime. Astronomers have detected these ripples on Earth.

Fox told NASA that with the surviving companion, we could potentially be seeing the beginning of a wave event.