To the dismay of many, stars cannot last forever and their life ends in their own way depending on the type of star it is. Some can become a white dwarf star or a black hole; their lives always end with one bright flash which then grows faint in the night sky. That was what was supposed to happen to the star iPFT14hls but after it had its bright flash, it began to experience these explosions repeatedly; why is this the case?
Although I always hate saying this (but hey, it’s science), researchers aren’t sure why that happened. Scientists postulate that this could be occurring from antimatter and matter mixing but it is still uncertain.
This supernova was discovered in 2014 and scientists initially believed that it was in the end stages of its life. Normally after this, it would grow dimmer over the span of 100 days. Instead, iPFT14hls grew brighter and bigger once more and repeated the cycle at least five times in the past two years.
Another interest of this star is due to its size It is approximated to be 50 times more massive than the Sun and if the size is the cause of this abnormal cycle, it could change our understanding of supernovae. The uncertainty around this star has gotten the adrenaline moving in scientists and amateur astronomists like myself because figuring out the mechanisms iPFT14hls works on could increase our knowledge about matter and antimatter.
Antimatter and matter are complete opposites of each other. It is theorized that there were equal amounts of matter and antimatter created when this universe was formed but most traces of the universe is composed of matter. The greatest mystery in modern-day physics is figuring out what happened to antimatter and what it may be composed of.
Antimatter and matter have different electrical charges and if they come into contact with each other, they anilate to leave behind pure energy. A lot of this was present when the universe first came into creation, leaving behind an abundant amount of energy.
The question that irks scientists is the difference in the amount of matter and antimatter. A good analogy derived from the European Organization of Nuclear Research, CERN, visualizes matter and antimatter as the head and tail of a coin. A coin has a 50-50 chance of landing on either head or tail so tehcnially speaking, if the coin were to be flipped in exactly the same way each time, it should half land on tails and half on heads. However, if you have something interfere with this process, like a marble, it might make the coin land more on tails rather than heads. So could something be interfering with the distribution of antimatter and matter? Who knows! Hopefully research conducted with iPFT14hls will help end this confusion or at least guide scientists on the right path!
While studies are still being conducted on iPFT14hls, it’s not over just yet! The star is still brightening the night sky at its peak and is being closely monitored to learn more about its mechanisms.
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