A massive hypergiant star as the progenitor of （大规模hypergiant明星的祖）.pdf

doi:10.1038/nature07934 LETTERS A massive hypergiant star as the progenitor of the supernova SN 2005gl A. Gal-Yam1 D. C. Leonard2 Our understandingof the evolution of massivestars before their final supernova 2005gl resulted from the explosion of a most luminous, explosions as supernovae is incomplete, from both an observational and probably very massive, progenitor star. Following SN 1987A, this and a theoretical standpoint. A key missing piece in the supernova is only the second case for which such solid evidence exists, with SN puzzle is the difficulty of identifying and studying progenitor stars. 2005gl being more than 1,000 times more distant than SN 1987A In only a single case—that of supernova SN 1987A in the Large (66 Mpc versus 50 kpc, respectively), and NGC266_LBV 1 being Magellanic Cloud—has a star been detected at the supernova loca- approximately ten times more luminous than Sk 269 202, the blue tion before the explosion, and been subsequently shown to have supergiant progenitor of SN 1987A1. vanished after the supernova event1. The progenitor of SN 1987A During the past decades, several objects detected in pre-explosion was a blue supergiant, which required a rethink of stellar evolution images of the locations of nearby supernovae have been proposed as models2. The progenitor of supernova SN 2005gl was proposed to be the likely progenitor stars1,7–11. In all of these cases, the masses of the an extremely luminous object3, but the association was not robustly proposed progenitors are estimated to be in the range 8–20 M[ established (it was not even clear that the putative progenitor was a