Even stars need an end of their life and therefore a final resting place. Researchers at the University of Sydney sought to find out where such a place might be by searching for the celestial remnants of ancient stars that collapsed into black holes or neutron stars.
And this research paid off: Just below the visible part of the Milky Way lies a galactic “graveyard” of dead stars.
What they found and successfully mapped for the first time is a stellar cemetery far beyond the height of our own galaxy. The researchers, who publish their accompanying work in the Monthly Notice of the Royal Astronomical Society, aptly refer to their discovery as the “galactic afterlife.”
“The ‘height’ of the galactic afterlife is more than three times greater than in the Milky Way itself,” lead author David Sweeney, PhD student at the Sydney Institute of Astronomy, said in a press release.
Both black holes and neutron stars form after a massive explosion, or supernova, when massive stars collapse into themselves at the end of their lives. This powerful explosion hurls these stellar remnants into the dark regions of space, where they are found in a place difficult for astronomers to investigate.
But by meticulously simulating the lifespan of Quondam stars, the researchers were able to predict where their “corpses” went.
“The most difficult problem I had to solve when searching for their true distribution was to explain the ‘kicks’ they received during the violent moments of their creation,” Sweeney said. and it happens in a random direction.”
“I expected the galactic afterlife to be somewhat different, but overall similar,” said Sanjib Sharma, a research fellow at the University of Sydney who helped map the cemetery. “I didn’t expect such a radical change in form.”
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