Detection of a red supergiant progenitor star of a type II-plateau supernova |
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Authors: | Smartt Stephen J Maund Justyn R Hendry Margaret A Tout Christopher A Gilmore Gerard F Mattila Seppo Benn Chris R |
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Affiliation: | Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0HA, UK. sjs@ast.cam.ac.uk |
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Abstract: | We present the discovery of a red supergiant star that exploded as supernova 2003gd in the nearby spiral galaxy M74. The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and the Gemini Telescope imaged this galaxy 6 to 9 months before the supernova explosion, and subsequent HST images confirm the positional coincidence of the supernova with a single resolved star that is a red supergiant of 8(+4)(-2) solar masses. This confirms both stellar evolution models and supernova theories predicting that cool red supergiants are the immediate progenitor stars of type II-plateau supernovae. |
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