Scientists may have discovered how a famous supernova called Supernova 1987A (SN 1987A) came to be adorned by a remarkable “string of pearls” formation of hydrogen clumps around it.
SN 1987A is located in a neighboring galaxy of the Milky Way and is around 160,000 light years from Earth. It is surrounded by glowing hydrogen plasma clumps that form a “string of pearls” structure.
Researchers believe this formation may be caused by a mechanism called Crow instability, which occurs when airflow streams spiral together, akin to what forms contrails behind planes.
Using simulations, they modeled how stellar winds from the original star could have pushed out a surrounding gas ring, subjecting it to Crow instability and breaking it into evenly spaced clumps over time.
The simulations predicted around 32 clumps, aligning with observations, and could also explain additional fainter clumps seen recently with the James Webb Space Telescope.
Understanding this supernova’s structure provides insights into how large-scale cosmic structures like galaxies evolved over time.
Source: space
