An international team led by Weizmann Institute of Science and Northwestern University scientists says it has discovered a never-before-seen core of a supernova, a massive exploding star, that was rich in heavy elements such as silicon, sulfur and argon.

The star’s outer layers were stripped away suddenly, and the blazing inner core — the heart of the massive star, dubbed SN2021yfj — was revealed before the explosion.

“We now have evidence that there are heavier elements inside stars,” Prof. Avishay Gal-Yam, head of the experimental astrophysics group at the department of particle physics and astrophysics at Weizmann, told The Times of Israel. “We know the sun contains mostly hydrogen and we theorized that stars had heavier elements. But this is the first time we have evidence.”

Dr. Ofer Yaron, a staff scientist in Gal-Yam’s group and a leading expert on supernova databases, also participated in the study, with lead author Dr. Steve Schulze, a former member of Gal-Yam’s team at the Weizmann Institute and currently a researcher at Northwestern University, along with researchers from France, Italy, China and Ireland.

The findings, published Wednesday in Nature, were featured on the cover.

The discovery comes two months after a devastating Iranian missile attack on Weizmann, a world-leading research institute in Rehovot. Nobody was killed but the strike destroyed around 45 labs, some........

© The Times of Israel