Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven?
Job 38:33
That is, until now.
For the first time, astronomers have discovered a star that has gone supernova more than once. This so-called “zombie star” — which exploded at least twice in the last 60 years alone — has baffled scientists by challenging many of the existing theories about how massive stars end their lives.
“This supernova breaks everything we thought we knew about how they work,” said the study’s lead author Iair Arcavi,
The undying star, named iPTF14hls, was first discovered in September 2014 by the Palomar Transient Factory (PTF), a fully automated, wide-field survey designed to spot cosmic objects that vary in brightness over time — such as variable stars, transient objects, and, of course, supernovae.
Although Supernova iPTF14hls initially faded after its 2014 explosion, within a few months it began to mysteriously grow brighter again. Over the course of three years, iPTF14hls fluctuated between bright and dim at least five separate times.
“This [was] one of those head-scratcher type of events,” said co-author Peter Nugent, a senior scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. “At first we thought it was completely normal and boring. Then it just kept staying bright, and not changing, for month after month.”
When the astronomers realized iPTF14hls was not an average supernova, they decided to go back and search through archival data. The researchers were flabbergasted when they found that in 1954, another explosion was recorded in the exact same location as iPTF14hls. Somehow, the star survived its first explosion, waited 60 years, and then exploded again." Astronomy
