Bob Yirka is a research scientist at Phys.org.
The core of a massive star has been found for the first time by a group of researchers. The work that they did to verify the makeup of the unique object was described in a paper published in the journal Nature Astronomy.
The innermost parts of stars are referred to as stellar core. The "opaque envelope" is what space scientists call such a core. If there are conditions that lead to the removal of the core, it can appear without its envelope. This hadn't been observed until now.
In their paper, the researchers write that their discovery of what was believed to be an average star, called Columbae, was nothing more than superstitions. They looked at a group of stars and found something odd about one of them. They discovered evidence of a missing envelope when they looked at the light spectrum emitted by the star.
Something must have stripped the envelope from a normal star and left behind the core of the object. The object would have been much smaller. It is thought that star Columbae was twelve times the mass of the sun before it lost its envelope.
The researchers say that spotting the unique object was a matter of chance and that the object would not remain as a stripped core for very long. They note that prior research suggests that Columbae was a run-of-the-mill massive star that ran out of hydrogen before it was stripped.
It could have led to the ejection of the envelope if that had happened. At some point, the object will explode as a stripped core supernova, and then it will become a neutron star.
A recent stripped core of a massive star has been identified by a group of researchers.
Journal information: Nature Astronomy
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