Massive Star Explosion: Distant Supernova SN SCP-0401 Found (VIDEO)
A massive star explosion, which was first detected by scientists’ back in 2004, and was dubbed the candidate supernova Mingus, has now been confirmed with its identity as a Type 1a supernova — a “dead” white dwarf star that erupts in a titanic blast after borrowing enough material from a companion star to reach critical mass. Its distance has also been estimated.
The supernova, known as SN SCP-0401, is 10 billion light-years from Earth, meaning it exploded just 3.7 billion years after the Big Bang that created our universe.
David Rubin, of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California, Berkeley, who is part of the research team, said “This is the most distant supernova anyone has ever found for doing dependable cosmology.”
“The most important unanswered question we have about the nature of dark energy is whether it varies over time — whether it affects the expansion of the universe differently in different eras. With SN SCP-0401, we have the first example of a well-measured supernova sufficiently far away to study the expansion history of the universe from almost 10 billion years ago.”
Rubin presented the results, which will also be published later this month in the Astrophysical Journal, today (Jan. 9) at the 221st meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Long Beach, Calif.
Video: Type 1a Supernovae