Electron-eating neon causes star collapse

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Electron-capture supernova: electron-eating neon causes star collapse

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An international team of researchers has found that neon inside a certain massive star can eat so many electrons in the core, a process called electron capture, which causes the star to collapse into a neutron star and produce a supernova.

The researchers were interested in studying the final fate of stars within a mass range of 8 to 10 solar masses, or 8 to 10 times the mass of our Sun. This mass range is important because it includes the boundary between whether a star has a large enough mass to undergo a supernova explosion to form a neutron star, or has a smaller mass to form a white dwarf star without becoming a supernova.

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