SN 2023ixf

Elaine Vandenhazel

PHYS 1040

Professor Samuel Jones

21 March 2024
 There is much to be learned from the discovery of Supernovae, how they happen, and

what consequences come as a result of them happening. This is the reasoning behind my choice

of the Supernova SN 2023ixf. It was discovered on May 19th, 2023 and is the closest explosion

to Earth within the last five years, which sets it apart from other Supernovae.

This particular Supernova is potentially the most informative Supernova studied in

regards to the rise, decay, and in between stages of Supernovae. To discover one of these

Supernovae an astronomer must have access to a telescope, and depending on how far away it is,

a strong one. For this particular discovery a 0.35-meter telescope was used by amateur

astronomer Koichi Itagaki, who noticed that the star was rapidly brightening. Having the star be

only about 20 million light-years away from earth allows the scientists studying it to have the

opportunity to gather data from such a large explosion of the massive star.

This Supernova is known as a progenitor star, a type II (otherwise known as a core

collapse) explosion. A type II explosion means that the star is a red supergiant that is between 8

times the mass of the sun to 25 times the mass of the sun. This star exhibited strange behavior

with its explosion, producing a light curve rather than a normal flash of light.

To better understand this behavior, astronomers led by Daichi Hiramatsu analyzed data

from several different telescopes, including a 1.5mm Tillinghast Telescope and a 1.2 telescope.

After conducting this multi wavelength study scientists learned that SN 2023ixf’s initial shock

breakout was delayed by several days, which contradicts the stellar evolution theory. According

to Hiramatsu the delayed shock breakout indicates that the star lost mass before it exploded and

dense material remained. This type of behavior in a Type II star is considered atypical by

astronomers. The amount of mass loss was so large it is comparable to the size of the sun and

was lost within a year prior to its explosion. Being able to study this supernova so early on in its
explosion allowed scientists to gain a better understanding of the rise and fall of supernovae and

the phenomenon behind them. This could not have happened without the existing maintenance of

amateur astronomers and professional astronomers relationships.

 Works Cited

Center for Astrophysics. (2023, September 27). Extreme weight loss: Star sheds unexpected

amounts of mass just before going supernova. EurekAlert!

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1002702

Hensley, K. (2023, September 27). Getting to Know the Supernova Next Door: SN 2023ixf. AAS

Nova.

https://aasnova.org/2023/09/27/getting-to-know-the-supernova-next-door-sn-2023ixf/#:~:

text=Using%20a%200.35%2Dmeter%20telescope

Bersten, M. C., Orellana, M., Folatelli, G., Martinez, L., Piccirilli, M. P., Regna, T., Aguilar, L.

M. R., & Ertini, K. (2024). The progenitor of SN 2023ixf from hydrodynamical

modeling. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 681, L18.

https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202348183

Kilpatrick, C. D., Foley, R. J., Jacobson-Galán, W. V., Piro, A. L., Smartt, S. J., Drout, M. R.,

Gagliano, A., Gall, C., Hjorth, J., Jones, D. O., Mandel, K. S., Raffaella Margutti, Enrico

Ramirez-Ruiz, Ransome, C. L., V. Ashley Villar, Coulter, D. A., Gao, H., David Jacob

Matthews, Taggart, K., & Yossef Zenati. (2023). SN 2023ixf in Messier 101: A Variable

Red Supergiant as the Progenitor Candidate to a Type II Supernova. ˜the œAstrophysical

Journal. Letters, 952(1), L23–L23. https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ace4ca