Astronomers have discovered a new type of supernova, other than the two types known to exist and call it Type Iax.
Scientists have believed for a very long time that there are two types of supernovas known to exist in the universe. However, Carnegie's Wendy Freedman, Mark Phillips and Eric Persson and their team have found a new and third type of supernova which is called Type Iax. Previously all supernovas were divided into two types - core-collapse or Type Ia. Supernovas belonging to the first type were usually the ones that were formed from the explosion of a star bout 10 to 100 times as massive as our sun. Type Ia supernovae are the complete disruption of a tiny white dwarf.
This new type of supernova also comes from a tiny white dwarf but is fainter than Type Ia supernovas and may not destroy the white dwarf completely.
"A Type Iax supernova is essentially a mini supernova," said lead author Ryan Foley, Clay Fellow at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). "It's the runt of the supernova litter."
25 new supernovas were discovered that fell into this category. None of them appeared in elliptical galaxies, which are filled with old stars. This suggests that Type Iax supernovas come from young star systems. Scientists concluded that these supernovas came "a binary star system containing a white dwarf and a companion star that has lost its outer hydrogen, leaving it helium dominated. The white dwarf collects helium from the normal star."
"The closer we look, the more ways we find for stars to explode," Phillips said. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope could discover thousands of Type Iax supernovas over its lifetime.
