‘First Star Stripped To The Bone’: Astronomers Discover New Type Of Supernova

Last Updated:August 23, 2025, 17:17 IST

The supernova, named SN2021yfj, revealed a star that had been completely stripped of its hydrogen, helium, and carbon layers

The discovery was made using telescopes like the Zwicky Transient Facility and the Keck Observatory. (Image generated via AI)

Astronomers have discovered a new kind of supernova that has given them a rare and direct view into the deep layers of a star just before it explodes.

The findings, published in the journal Nature, show a star that had lost nearly all of its outer layers before dying, something never seen before.

The supernova, named SN2021yfj, revealed a star that had been completely stripped of its hydrogen, helium, and carbon layers. When it finally exploded, it lit up a thick shell of heavier elements like silicon, sulfur, and argon, elements usually hidden deep inside stars and rarely seen during a supernova.

“This is the first time we have seen a star that was essentially stripped to the bone," said Steve Schulze, lead author of the study from Northwestern University.

Coauthor Adam Miller added that the discovery challenges what scientists thought they knew about how stars live and die. “This star is telling us that our ideas and theories for how stars evolve are too narrow. It’s not that our textbooks are incorrect, but they clearly do not fully capture everything produced in nature."

Massive stars usually work like cosmic furnaces, fusing lighter elements into heavier ones in their cores. This process builds up layers inside the star, like an onion. At the end of a star’s life, when it tries to fuse iron, it no longer produces enough energy, and the core collapses, causing a huge explosion, a supernova, CNN reported.

What surprised scientists about SN2021yfj was that the explosion exposed a layer of silicon and sulfur that had been thrown off shortly before the star’s death. Normally, these elements are buried deep and don’t appear on their own.

The discovery was made using telescopes like the Zwicky Transient Facility and the Keck Observatory. The research team has called this a new class of supernova — a Type Ien — and believe it may represent a rare but important part of how massive stars evolve.

The team now hopes to find more of these events and learn how often they occur across the universe.

(With inputs from CNN)

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