Researchers recently located SN 2019ehk, 55 million light-years from Earth, which emitted the most calcium of all recorded unique explosive astrophysical events of its kind.
Rare star explosions have produced half of the calcium in space, including nutrients in our teeth and bones, new research has revealed.
Unique explosions, called “calcium-rich supernovae,” are still incomprehensible to the scientific world, but a recent study has shed some light on the last months of the lives of such stars and their explosions.
Such supernovae create huge amounts of nutrients necessary for all living beings in just a few seconds. Namely, researchers recently located SN 2019ehk, 55 million light-years from the Earth, which emitted the most calcium compared to all recorded unique explosive astrophysical events of this kind, reports the Daily Mail.
Such events are very rare, so we didn’t know what created the calcium-rich supernova. Observing what happened to this star in the last month before it reached its critical, turbulent end, we peeked into a previously unexplored area, opening new avenues in science, ”said study leader Wynn Jacobson-Galan of Northwestern University in Illinois.
Stars normally release calcium, but only a small amount is formed during their combustion.
Raffaella Margutti, senior author of the study and assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Northwestern Weinberg School of Science and the Arts, explained that supernovae, striving to balance with the environment, release energy and that calcium emissions are an effective way to achieve this. A team of scientists found that SN 2019ehk produced the most calcium ever observed in such an event.