A rare star explosion created the youngest black hole in the Milky Way galaxy, according to a new study.
Scientists estimate that the supernova remnant, named W49B, is about 1,000 years old as seen from Earth. It is roughly 26,000 light-years from our planet.
They also believe that, from the supernova remnants’ shape, the star met an unusual end, reports Yahoo! News .
Laura Lopez of MIT, the study’s lead author, explained:
“W49B is the first of its kind to be discovered in the galaxy. It appears its parent star ended its life in a way that most others don’t.”
Images of the rare star explosion’s remnants were released on February 13. Normally, a star shoots stellar material away from itself fairly evenly when it explodes. The result is a relatively symmetrical cosmic object.
But W49B did not do this. Instead, the star’s poles ejected their debris much faster than its equator. The result of the rare star explosion was a supernova remnant strangely asymmetrical. International Science Times notes that W49B also sported no neutron star, suggesting that the rare star explosion produced a black hole.
Co-author Daniel Castro of MIT stated:
“It’s a bit circumstantial, but we have intriguing evidence the W49B supernova also created a black hole. If that is the case, we have a rare opportunity to study a supernova responsible for creating a young black hole.”
Supernovas are rare and not understood completely by scientists because of a lack of recorded instances. The close proximity of the W49B to Earth will let scientists learn more about the properties of a supernova and how a black hole forms.
Check out the video below to see W49B, created by a rare star explosion.
[Image via NASA/CXC/MIT/L.Lopez et al ]
