1. Benoziyo Center for Astrophysics , Faculty of Physics, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel
2. Department of Astronomy, San Diego State University, San Diego, California 92182, USA

Correspondence to: A. Gal-Yam¹ Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to A.G.-Y. (Email: avishay.gal-yam@weizmann.ac.il.).

Abstract

Our understanding of the evolution of massive stars before their final explosions as supernovae is incomplete, from both an observational and a theoretical standpoint. A key missing piece in the supernova puzzle is the difficulty of identifying and studying progenitor stars. In only a single case—that of supernova SN 1987A in the Large Magellanic Cloud—has a star been detected at the supernova location before the explosion, and been subsequently shown to have vanished after the supernova event¹. The progenitor of SN 1987A was a blue supergiant, which required a rethink of stellar evolution models². The progenitor of supernova SN 2005gl was proposed to be an extremely luminous object³, but the association was not robustly established (it was not even clear that the putative progenitor was a single luminous star). Here we report that the previously proposed³ object was indeed the progenitor star of SN 2005gl. This very massive star was likely a luminous blue variable that standard stellar evolution predicts should not have exploded in that state.

MORE ARTICLES LIKE THIS

These links to content published by NPG are automatically generated.