Ancient star death unlocks 13-billion-year space mystery
8 July 2021
No one's ever found this phenomenon before
In a world-first, astronomers from The Australian National University (ANU) have discovered evidence of a massive explosion that led to the destruction of a rapidly spinning, strongly-magnetized star.
The so-called "magneto-rotational hypernova" occurred around a billion years after the Big Bang and was 10-times more energetic than a supernova.
The breakthrough discovery, led by an international team of scientists, offers clues for why an unusually high concentration of metal elements were present in another ancient Milky Way star.
The star, SMSS J200322.54-114203.3, had higher amounts of zinc, uranium and europium, compared to the first stars in the universe which were predominantly made up of hydrogen and helium.