SN 2006jc
Encyclopedia
SN 2006jc was a hypernova
Hypernova
Hypernova , also known as a type 1c Supernova, refers to an incredibly large star that collapses at the end of its lifespan...

 that was detected on October 9, 2006 in the Galaxy UGC 4904. Two years earlier, the progenitor star produced a supernova impostor that was detected by Japanese amateur astronomer Koichi Itagaki. The star produced a high energy outburst that did not lead to stellar collapse.

Rarity

The stars that are progenitors of these supernovae are extremely rare; there are probably only several dozen stars like this in a galaxy the size of the Milky Way
Milky Way
The Milky Way is the galaxy that contains the Solar System. This name derives from its appearance as a dim un-resolved "milky" glowing band arching across the night sky...

 galaxy. This means that 24 to 120 stars out of two hundred billion other stars are super luminous hyper giants like SN 2006jc's progenitor, and would be the population capable of producing such supernovae.

Progenitor star

This type of progenitor star has a luminosity 1 to 6 million times that of the Sun. Its extreme rate of fuel consumption causes it to live a very short time, typically 3 to 5 million years. The star was probably of Class O, the hottest and most massive main sequence
Main sequence
The main sequence is a continuous and distinctive band of stars that appears on plots of stellar color versus brightness. These color-magnitude plots are known as Hertzsprung–Russell diagrams after their co-developers, Ejnar Hertzsprung and Henry Norris Russell...

 class. After perhaps 2 million years it became a bright giant
Bright giant
The luminosity class II in the Yerkes spectral classification is given to bright giants. These are stars which straddle the boundary between giants and supergiants, and the classification is in general given to giant stars with exceptionally high luminosity, but which are not sufficiently bright...

, and then after another 500,000 years it had a violent outburst. Afterwards the star was unstable until its final explosion as a hypernova, two years later.

This star was detected with X rays in 2006, during the time of the outburst. At that time its spectrum was that of a Wolf-Rayet star
Wolf-Rayet star
Wolf–Rayet stars are evolved, massive stars , which are losing mass rapidly by means of a very strong stellar wind, with speeds up to 2000 km/s...

.

See also

  • Stellar classification
    Stellar classification
    In astronomy, stellar classification is a classification of stars based on their spectral characteristics. The spectral class of a star is a designated class of a star describing the ionization of its chromosphere, what atomic excitations are most prominent in the light, giving an objective measure...

  • Stellar evolution
    Stellar evolution
    Stellar evolution is the process by which a star undergoes a sequence of radical changes during its lifetime. Depending on the mass of the star, this lifetime ranges from only a few million years to trillions of years .Stellar evolution is not studied by observing the life of a single...

  • Types:
    • Luminous blue variable
      Luminous blue variable
      Luminous blue variables, also known as S Doradus variables, are very bright, blue, hypergiant variable stars named after S Doradus, the brightest star of the Large Magellanic Cloud. They exhibit long, slow changes in brightness, punctuated by occasional outbursts in brightness during substantial...

    • Wolf-Rayet
      Wolf-Rayet
      Wolf-Rayet can mean:* Wolf-Rayet star, a type of evolved, massive star* Wolf-Rayet galaxy, which contains large numbers of WR stars* Wolf-Rayet nebula, which surrounds a Wolf-Rayet star...

  • Examples:
    • Eta Carinae
    • Pistol star
      Pistol Star
      The Pistol Star is a blue hypergiant and is one of the most luminous known stars in the Milky Way Galaxy.It is one of many massive young stars in the Quintuplet cluster in the Galactic Center region....


External links

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