Supernova warning system could alert the world to exploding stars, scientists say

Sign up to our free weekly IndyTech newsletter delivered straight to your inbox Sign up to our free IndyTech newsletter Sign up to our free IndyTech newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Scientists already knew that red supergiant stars nearing the end of their lives have large amounts of expelled dust and gas known as circumstellar material, or CSM, in orbit around them near the time they explode and die. Now, in a new paper accepted for publication in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society and currently available on the academic paper preprint service Arxiv, researchers from the University of Liverpool and the University of Montpellier have shown that it is the latter — dying stars must cough up the CSM close to their deaths, and so the appearance of that material could serve as an early warning sign of their coming demise. “Specifically, the build-up of the CSM must happen within a year of core-collapse.” Core-collapse supernovae occur in stars eight times as massive as the Sun or larger, typically red supergiants such as Betelgeuse. Even with the tremendous heat and pressure available at the heart of a red supergiant star, iron cannot be fused into heavier elements, and the star’s thermonuclear fires dimmed, it can no longer push outward with enough force to overcome its own gravity: The star collapses in on itself, triggering a massive supernova explosion.