Glowing faintly on the Milky Way’s outskirts, astronomers have found a nearly perfect spherical relic of a supernova, challenging accepted knowledge of stellar explosions. Apart from its terrible symmetry, the orb, G305.4–2.2 or “Telios”—Greek for “perfect”—is confusing in terms of size and distance. Captured on radio pictures from the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP), the object might be either remarkably young or old. Its remarkable shape raises fundamental questions about how such near-perfect remnants form, especially given the chaotic nature of typical stellar deaths.

Astronomers Find Rarely Symmetrical Supernova Remnant in Milky Way Outskirts

As per a recent study published on the preprint server arXiv and accepted by Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia, Telios was detected during the Evolutionary Map of the Universe project. Most supernova remnants (SNRs) have spheroidal shapes, none close to the smooth circular extremity of this record-holding SNR. “This object is circularly symmetric, indicating that it is one of the most circular galactic SNRs ever seen,” the authors mentioned.

Telios’ unusual symmetry is paired with extremely low brightness, making it difficult to pinpoint its distance or dimensions. Ranging from 45.6 to 156.5, it lets astronomers pin down that it could be anywhere from 7,170 to 25,101 light-years away from us. Its position below the galactic plane, in the thin disc of the galaxy where very few stars live, adds another layer of complexity. Its symmetric shape indicates a recently born neutron star, albeit with fainter light, supporting two other possibilities: an old, slowing-down neutron star or a young one that hasn’t lost its initial shape.

Though the source of Telios is yet unknown, astronomers choose Type Ia supernovae, explosions from less massive stars with a more constant force. Starting from more massive red giants, these are not as far-off or as lovely in quality as core-collapse supernovae. That notion is called into doubt, though, by the absence of a recognised parent star. Although the Type Ia scenario was recommended without direct data, the writers actively argued for more high-resolution studies.

A binary star system is a pair of stars gravitationally bound and orbiting a common centre of mass. In 2004, David Ramm at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand spotted a mysterious repeating signal while observing the motion of a pair of stars in a system called Nu Octantis. The signal hinted that a massive planet, twice Jupiter’s size, might exist in that system. In a new study, a small group of astronomers used improved measuring devices to confirm the planet’s existence and explain how the system can remain stable.

Retrograde motion of the planet

According to the study, new data from the HARPS spectrograph at the European Southern Observatory, the main star in the system is a sub-giant. The smaller star, a white dwarf, and the planet both orbit the larger star. But, oddly enough, they go around the star in opposite directions. These reversed trajectories reduce the risk of gravitational disruption and make the system stable.

The planet’s signal has remained consistent for more than 20 years, which strongly suggests it is not caused by stellar activity. According to Man Hoi Lee, co-author of the study, researchers are pretty sure about the planet’s existence. This highlights how long-term stability in the data supports the existence of this strange planet with a tight but stable path through the binary system.

Origin of the planet

There are two possibilities: the planet either used to orbit both stars at once but then radically shifted trajectory when one of the two stars became a white dwarf, or it was formed from the mass that the star ejected as it transformed into a white dwarf. Future observations and a lot more mathematical modelling may be able to pinpoint which of these scenarios is more likely to have occurred, but both are rather novel.

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