Astronomers have noticed the explosion of a star that took place 10.5 billion years ago

• An international team of astronomers coordinated by the University of Southampton published a study describing the farthest supernova observed so far.

It is the explosion of a massive star produced 10.5 billion years ago and whose light has just been detected by terrestrial observers.

This discovery is all the more interesting as the universe is estimated at 13.8 billion years, and this super-mass star has lit up in the "dawn" of the Universe.

Supernova with the DES16C2nm catalog name was detected in the Dark Energy Survey (DES) project. "DES16C2nm (the name of this star's catalog) is extraordinarily remote, extraordinarily brilliant, and extremely rare (and this supernova no) is not the type of event that astronomers can meet every day" commented, without avoid superlatives, Mathew Smith, study coordinator.

The supernova phenomenon is the cataclysmic explosion at the end of the life of more massive stars than the Sun, which burn with intensity and have a shorter life than the star in the Earth's orbit.

These massive stars consume their nuclear fuel represented by hydrogen and helium in the nuclear fusion process and gradually begin to merge heavier elements.

According to existing theories, when iron accumulates in the nucleus of such a star, the nucleus collapses itself, producing a black hole or a neutron star, and the outer shells are expelled into space at a huge speed of about 30,000 km / s (one tenth of the light speed).

Because of the incredible amount of energy released, this supernova had a brilliance of about 200 million suns and could be seen on Earth.

The light emitted by this supernova reached Earth at 10.5 billion years after the phenomenon and was first detected in August 2016.

The distance this star was (10.5 billion light years) and its extreme brightness were confirmed in October 2017 by three telescopes - the Very Large Telescope and the Magellan Telescope in Chile, and Keck Observatory in Hawaii.

The international team of astronomers, coordinated by Mathew Smith and at the origin of the study published in the journal Astrophysical Journal, included this phenomenon in the category of "super bright light supernovae (SLSN)" - the rarities and brightest supernovae.

"Besides being a very exciting discovery, the extreme distance to which the DES16C2nm was located gives us a unique perspective on the nature of the super bright lights (...) The ultraviolet light emitted by this supernova reveals the amount of metals (Heavy Elements No) produced in the explosion and gives us clues about the explosion temperature, two essential information to understand the causes that trigger these cosmic explosions, "explained Mathew Smith.