Long-term observations made with the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph at Gemini South , combined with Spitzer space telescope data , reveal how core collapse supernovae can make an important , yet largely unrecognized , contribution to the overall dust budget of the Universe .
April 2016
Jennifer Andrews
Figure 1 .
GMOS-S g ’, r ’, and i ’ color composite image of SN 2011ja from April 2012 ( day 112 ). In the original image , the supernova looks red due to a combination of bright hydrogen ( Hα ) emission , strong extinction around the object , and new dust formation .
Dusting the Universe with Supernovae
Long-term observations made with the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph at Gemini South , combined with Spitzer space telescope data , reveal how core collapse supernovae can make an important , yet largely unrecognized , contribution to the overall dust budget of the Universe .
Stars more than eight times the mass of our Sun end their lives in fantastic explosions we call core collapse supernovae ( CCSNe ). Most common are Type II-Plateau ( Type II-P ) events , which show broad hydrogen emission lines in their spectra along with a near constant plateau of optical luminosity throughout the first ~ 100 days .
It has long been known that heavy elements and dust grains can be formed in the leftover material ejected in a CCSN explosion . However , only recently have we recognized the importance of this contribution to the overall dust budget in the Universe .
Generally we thought that asymptotic giant branch stars were the main contributors of dust in galaxies ; these low- to intermediate-mass stars form dust grains in their stellar winds over millennia and deposit them into the interstellar medium ( ISM ). But this does not explain how high-redshift galaxies ( z > 6 ) can have more dust than their young ages should allow . Thus we began to revisit the role that CCSNe play in dust production , especially their ability to quickly return gas and dust to the ISM .
16 GeminiFocus January 2017 | 2016 Year in Review