Wolf–Rayet stars or WR stars.
GS PAPER III: Science and Technology- developments and their applications and effects in everyday life.
Context: Indian astronomers have tracked a rare supernova explosion and traced it to one of the hottest kind of stars called Wolf–Rayet stars or WR stars.
- The rare Wolf–Rayet stars are highly luminous objects a thousand times that of the Sun and have intrigued astronomers for long.
- They are massive stars and strip their outer hydrogen envelope, which is associated with the fusion of Helium and other elements in the massive core.
- Tracking of certain types of massive luminous supernovae explosion can help probe these stars that remain an enigma for scientists.
- The scientists also found that the original star was a combination of two stars – one of them is a massive WR star and another is a star much less in mass than the Sun.
- Supernovae (SNe) are highly energetic explosions in the Universe releasing an enormous amount of energy. Long-term monitoring of these transients opens the door to understand the nature of the exploding star as well as the explosion properties.
- It can also help enumerate the number of massive stars.
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