One-in-ten-billion binary star system may one day set off showers of space gold.

.Chile’s COQUIMBO — One day a binary star system with a one in ten billion chance of exploding could unleash a gold-showering supernova. This ground-breaking discovery was made by astronomers using the SMARTS 1.5-meter Telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, a program of the NSF’s NOIRLab. The discovery team describes the star system as “phenomenally unusual” and adds that it has all the prerequisites for eventually igniting a kilonova.

It is described by the researchers as a massive explosion that produces gold when two neutron stars meet. Only approximately 10 such systems are thought to exist in the entire Milky Way galaxy, according to experts, because the conditions required for such an event are so incredibly rare.

CPD-29 2176 is the name of the recently discovered system, which is roughly 11,400 light years away from Earth. The stars were discovered initially by NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory. The orbital characteristics and types of the two stars that make up the system—a neutron star produced by an ultra-stripped supernova and a closely orbiting massive star that is currently on the verge of going supernova—were then determined by additional observations by the SMARTS 1.5-meter Telescope.

A large star’s final explosion after the majority of its outer atmosphere has been stripped away by a companion star is referred to as a “ultra-stripped supernova.” The explosive force of a more typical supernova, which would typically “push” any nearby partner stars out of the system, is absent from this sort of explosion.

“The current neutron star would >>> Read On

 

 

 

https://studyfinds.org/binary-star-explode-cosmic-gold/