In the heart of the Milky Way are the remains of a rare stellar explosion, the first of its kind in our galaxy: identified with the name Sagittarius A East (Sgr A East), they are located near the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A * and could reveal how some stars are shattered, scattering precious elements for life.
The discovery is the result of observations from NASA's Chandra space telescope, shared on the arXiv website - awaiting official publication in The Astrophysical Journal - by an international team of astronomers led by the University of Amsterdam.
The study suggests that Sgr A East is not a common supernova (type Ia) due to the explosion of a massive star, as had been previously hypothesized: it would actually be a rare supernova (type Iax) caused by a dwarf white (i.e. a small star out of fuel as our Sun will be at the end of its life) that produces less powerful explosions, disseminating different quantities of chemical elements such as iron, nickel and chromium.
Supernovae of type Iax have already been observed in other galaxies, where their number is equal to about one third of those of type Ia.
In the Milky Way, three type Ia supernovae and two candidates with less than 2,000 years have been confirmed so far (age at which the remnants of the explosion are still relatively bright).
If Sgr A East was less than 2,000 years old and derived from an Iax supernova, then this discovery would show that our galaxy is also in line with what has been observed in the others.
