A paper submitted to the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters in September reported that a chemical analysis of the object seemed to match emissions from a distant, cool and carbon-rich atmosphere. Lead author Boris Gaensicke, an associate professor of physics with the United Kingdom's University of Warwick, and colleagues theorized that the object is a new class of supernova or perhaps a disruption of a carbon-rich star. Gaensicke's team also discovered a strong X-ray source -- two orders of magnitude higher than any observed supernova -- that appeared to be associated with SCP 06F6's declining phase. "In my view, the crucial next step is to probe for an underlying host galaxy around SCP 06F6," Gaensicke wrote in an e-mail to Discovery News. "The detection of a host galaxy would (a) confirm the extragalctic nature ... and (b) permit some insight into the nature of the progenitor of SCP 06F6." Last month, a team of Israeli scientists came up with some additional theories, including the destruction of a carbon-rich white dwarf star by a medium-sized black hole; a supernova explosion inside a carbon star; a collision between an asteroid and a white dwarf star; and a collapse of a supernova core. "Perhaps it is a new type of supernova," Stefan Immler, a NASA astrophysicist with the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., told Discovery News. "We really haven't learned anything else new about it." Related Links: |
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