A Star
(SN 2026gzf)Item No. 26
“We can live a whole life and not even realize we’ve missed noticing a star before its death.”
We’re not entering The Death Star, the moon-sized space station and super-weapon from Star Wars into The (Death of a) Thing. Rather, we’re entering The Death of a Star into The (Death of a) Thing.
To be specific, we’re cataloging SN2026 gzf.
What is SN2026 gzf? It is an exceptionally rare, energetic broad-lined Type 1c (Ic-BL) supernova, approximately 500 million light-years away.
Its death reached us earlier this year.
It gave astronomers an unprecedented look at the early moments of a massive star’s end.
Stars die? Yes, they do. Some say that the final seconds of a massive star are less predictable than we thought. Those who say that study the night sky. They pay attention to gamma-ray bursts and fading xray afterglows.
They tip their chin just so, as they look up to wonder what’s going on beyond here.
Here on Earth.
They notice that there are black holes and also that jets escape a star as it turns in on itself. They notice “the mysterious cosmic objects” like this. The objects in our universe that aren’t fully understood.
Most of us wouldn’t notice such things. We wouldn’t notice that the final seconds of a massive star are less predictable than we thought. Most of us probably rarely turn our eyes to the night sky at all.
Especially not long enough to notice the stars.
If we turn our eyes upward, it might be hard to find a dark night sky. A sky dark enough to notice a recognizable pattern of stars, like Orion, for example. Orion named after the, giant, handsome hunter, who “Zeus and Artemis placed among the stars.”
While most of us these days may not pay attention to the sky, to the final seconds of a massive star, or even to something so bright and specific as the three stars that make up Orion’s belt, we’re an anomaly, really.
That’s because a lot of people for a long time paid attention to the stars. People have noticed the stars for generations.
For the Incas, for example, Orion’s belt was a celestial reference point with spiritual significance. It also reminded farmers in October and November that the first frost was probably not far away. And that three-star pattern of Orion’s belt is well-known all around the world. In South Africa it is Drie Konigs (The Three Kings), or Drie Susters (the Three Sisters). In Spain and Latin America, the stars are called Las Tres Marias, or the Three Marys.
We might forget sometimes that we share the same sky with people from all over the world, even.
But we’re not entering Orion in The (Death of a) Thing. Even though Betelgeuse the red supergiant star that marks Orion’s upper-left shoulder, will one day run out of nuclear fuel, build up an iron core and collapse under its own weight.
It will die too.
In 5 billion years, our own star, the sun, will meet a similar end.
So far, we’re just entering SN2026 gzf in The (Death of a) Thing.
What is the cost of a star’s death? SN2026 gzf, Betelgeuse, or any other?
Most of us never really noticed SN2026 gzf. It was about 500 million light-years away. That’s too far for us to see, so no farmer read the season by it, and no one even gave it a name, really.
So what’s the cost of losing it?
It seems we lose something we never really knew we had.
And maybe the cost is that. That we can live a whole life and not even realize we’ve missed noticing a star before its death.
But it's also this: a star is a reference point. We can use them to know where we are. The Incas looked up to find spiritual meaning. Farmers noticed the first frost by first noticing a star in the sky.
So each star is a potential point of orientation. Without them, maybe we lose our way a little, even if we never noticed them. Even when we never knew it was there to navigate by to begin with.
Perhaps we were always a little lost.
Or, maybe the cost is mostly about our ability to pay attention.
Some say that stars forge the elements we’re made of. When they die, perhaps a part of us scatters too. We have to pay attention to notice the part of us that is lost. The parts of us that we may miss one day.
Or maybe the cost is simply the void a star leaves behind. Maybe its the collapse and the swallowing of something underneath the weight of a cosmic force is something we ought to notice, but don’t. Maybe the cost of the loss is a realization that there’s a whole additional dimension that we don’t understand, that is collapsing in on itself. There are objects in their own death throes, shedding outer layers, fading into white dwarfs or imploding completely. And while all of this is happening, we’re usually just concerned with ourselves.
Specifications:
Peak X-Ray Shock Breakout Luminosity: Measured at 1.0 × 10⁴⁵ erg s⁻¹ (with thermal energy kT = 130 eV), making it the faintest shock breakout ever associated with a Type Ic-BL supernova.
(Source: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1138668?)
Astronomical Coordinates & Location
- Right Ascension (RA): 09h 59m 42.8720s
- Declination (Dec): +00° 25' 6.38"
- Constellation: Sextans
- Distance: Approximately 500 million light-years
- Redshift (z): 0.0344
(Source: https://www.stsci.edu/jwst-program-info/download/jwst/pdf/12602/)
It becomes a black hole….They notice that there are black holes and jets that escape a star as it turns in on itself. (Expand on this) quiet collapse and swallowing….(“gravity overwhelms all other forces and crushes into a black hole///collapse” Supernova is a dying star, dead star is a black hole. Expanding into anoteher dimension we don’t understand
That part that is “broken apart and returned to the galaxy.”
“Broken apart and returned to the galaxy.”
Gamma ray burst night sky fading xray afterglow that didnt exist black hole one collapsing star launches a jet that escapes another doesn’t
“The final seconds of a massive star are less predictable than we thought.”