A team of users of the Large Binocular Telescope has recorded the
fastest nova ever. They hope to find answers to not only the nova’s many baffling
traits, but to larger questions about our solar system and the universe.
Astronomers
are buzzing after observing the fastest nova ever recorded. The unusual event
drew scientists’ attention to an even more unusual star. As they study it, they
may find answers to not only the nova’s many baffling traits, but to larger
questions about the chemistry of our solar system, the death of stars and the
evolution of the universe.
The
research team, led by Arizona State University Regents Professor Sumner
Starrfield, Professor Charles Woodward from
University of Minnesota and Research
Scientist Mark Wagner from The Ohio State University, co-authored a report
published in the Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society.
A
nova is a sudden explosion of bright light from a two-star system. Every nova is
created by a white dwarf — the very dense leftover core of a star — and a nearby
companion star. Over time, the white dwarf draws matter from its companion,
which falls onto the white dwarf. The white dwarf heats this material, causing
an uncontrolled reaction that releases a burst of energy. The explosion shoots
the matter away at high speeds, which we observe as visible light.
The
bright nova usually fades over a couple of weeks or longer. On June 12, 2021, the
nova V1674 Hercules burst so bright that it was visible to the naked eye — but
in just over one day, it was faint once more. It was like someone flicked a
flashlight on and off.
Nova
events at this level of speed are rare, making this nova a precious study
subject.
“It
was only about one day, and the previous fastest nova was one we studied back
in 1991, V838 Herculis, which declined in about two or three days,” says Starrfield, an astrophysicist in
ASU’s School of Earth and Space Exploration.
As
the astronomy world watched V1674 Hercules, other researchers found that its
speed wasn’t its only unusual trait. The light and energy it sends out is also
pulsing like the sound of a reverberating bell.
Every
501 seconds, there’s a wobble that observers can see in both visible light
waves and X-rays. A year after its explosion, the nova is still showing this wobble,
and it seems it’s been going on for even longer. Starrfield and his colleagues
have continued to study this quirk.
“The most unusual thing is that this
oscillation was seen before the outburst, but it was also evident when the nova
was some 10 magnitudes brighter,” says Wagner, who is also the head of science
at the Large
Binocular Telescope Observatory being used to observe the nova.
“A mystery that people are trying to wrestle with is what’s driving this
periodicity that you would see it over that range of brightness in the system.”
The
team also noticed something strange as they monitored the matter ejected by the
nova explosion — some kind of wind, which may be dependent on the positions of
the white dwarf and its companion star, is shaping the flow of material into space
surrounding the system.
This illustration shows an intermediate polar system, a type of two-star system that the research team thinks V1674 Hercules belongs to. A flow of gas from the large companion star impacts an accretion disk before flowing along magnetic field lines onto the white dwarf. Credit: Illustration by Mark Garlick.
Though
the fastest nova is (literally) flashy, the reason it’s worth further study is
that novae can tell us important information about our solar system and even
the universe as a whole.
A
white dwarf collects and alters matter, then seasons the surrounding space with
new material during a nova explosion. It’s an important part of the cycle of
matter in space. The materials ejected by novae will eventually form new
stellar systems. Such events helped form our solar system as well, ensuring
that Earth is more than a lump of carbon.
“We're always trying to figure out how the solar system
formed, where the chemical elements in the solar system came from,” Starrfield
says. “One of the things that we're going to learn from this nova is, for
example, how much lithium was produced by this explosion. We're fairly sure now
that a significant fraction of the lithium that we have on the Earth was
produced by these kinds of explosions.”
Sometimes a white dwarf star doesn’t lose all of its
collected matter during a nova explosion, so with each cycle, it gains mass. This
would eventually make it unstable, and the white dwarf could generate a type 1a
supernova, which is one of the brightest events in the universe. Each type 1a
supernova reaches the same level of brightness, so they are known as standard
candles.
“Standard candles are so bright that we can see them at
great distances across the universe. By looking at how the brightness of light
changes, we can ask questions about how the universe is accelerating or about
the overall three-dimensional structure of the universe,” Woodward says. “This
is one of the interesting reasons that we study some of these systems.”
Additionally,
novae can tell us more about how stars in binary systems evolve to their death,
a process that is not well understood. They also act as living laboratories
where scientists can see nuclear physics in action and test theoretical
concepts.
The
nova took the astronomy world by surprise. It wasn’t on scientists’ radar until
an amateur astronomer from Japan, Seidji Ueda, discovered and reported it.
|
MODS1 & MODS2, the pair of LBTO multi-object double spectrographs used by the team, seen while the telescope is pointed at horizon. Photo credit: Rick Pogge. |
Citizen
scientists play an increasingly important role in the field of astronomy, as
does modern technology. Even though it is now too faint for other types of
telescopes to see, the team is still able to monitor the nova thanks to the
Large Binocular Telescope’s wide aperture and its observatory’s other equipment,
including its pair of multi-object double spectrographs (MODS) and exceptional PEPSI high resolution spectrograph.
They
plan to investigate the cause of the outburst and the processes that led to it,
the reason for its record-breaking decline, the forces behind the observed
wind, and the cause of its pulsing brightness.