Two huge stars are about to collide.
No, we aren't talking about the Grammy Awards after-parties.
Two massive stars in the middle of the planetary nebula Henize 2-428 are about to merge (700 million years from now) and their union will cause a supernova explosion, according to a press release from European Southern Observatory (ESO).
ESO facilities and telescopes in the Canary Islands were used in the identification and the results can be seen in the online journal Nature. Miguel Santander-García from Observatorio Astronómico Nacional, Alcalá de Henares, Spain and Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Madrid (CSIC), Madrid, Spain lead the discovery of the white dwarf stars. The stars are very small and dense with a total mass 1.8 times that of our sun.
"This is the most massive such pair yet found and when these two stars merge in the future they will create a runaway thermonuclear explosion leading to a Type Ia supernova," according to the press release.
