Matt Kistler homepage. Matthew Kistler Discovery of the Dust-Enshrouded Progenitor of SN 2008S with Spitzer
Where was the star that exploded as SN 2008S?
When a supernova appeared in the nearby galaxy NGC 6946, it seemed an ideal candidate to conduct a search for the star that it resulted from in the photo archives of large optical telescopes. Surprisingly, no star showed up in deep images obtained with the Large Binocular Telescope months before the explosion. However, an even more interesting result was found: the progenitor star appeared in infrared images taken using the Spitzer Space Telescope years earlier. These results together implied that the massive star that exploded was surrounded a shroud of dust that it expelled before dying, with many interesting implications for the evolution of massive stars in general.
