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Astrophysics

A story of singular degeneracy

Nature volume 451, pages 776–777 (2008)Cite this article

Astronomers have a choice of two models of how type Ia supernovae arise. The progenitor for one of these huge stellar explosions has now been discovered, bringing a definitive judgement a little closer.

On page 802 of this issue, Voss and Nelemans1 report that they have found a luminous source of low-energy X-rays at just the position where, on 5 November last year, the type Ia supernova SN2007on was sighted. The discovery, made in archive data from NASA's Chandra X-ray-observatory satellite, is the first-ever detection of the progenitor of a supernova of this class. It lends support to one particular model for their origin: the 'single degenerate' model, in which the transfer of mass from a normal hydrogen-burning star to an exhausted white-dwarf star triggers the white dwarf to explode.

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Figure 1: A degenerate's progress.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Edward P. J. van den Heuvel is at the Astronomical Institute “Anton Pannekoek” and the Center for High Energy Astrophysics, University of Amsterdam, Kruislaan 403, 1098SJ Amsterdam, the Netherlands. edvdh@science.uva.nl ,

    Edward P. J. van den Heuvel

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  1. Edward P. J. van den Heuvel
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van den Heuvel, E. A story of singular degeneracy. Nature 451, 776–777 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/451775a

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