Department of Physics, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK.
Science. 2010 Jan 8;327(5962):188-90. doi: 10.1126/science.1180228. Epub 2009 Nov 12.
Stars with masses ranging from 7 to 10 times the mass of the Sun end their lives either as massive white dwarfs or weak type II supernovae, but there are only limited observational constraints on either evolutionary channel. Here we report the detection of two white dwarfs with large photospheric oxygen abundances, implying that they are bare oxygen-neon cores and that they may have descended from the most massive progenitors that avoid core collapse.
质量在太阳质量的 7 到 10 倍之间的恒星，其生命终结于大质量白矮星或弱 II 型超新星，但这两个演化通道的观测限制都很有限。在这里，我们报告了两个具有大的表面氧丰度的白矮星的探测结果，这表明它们是裸露的氧氖核，可能来自避免了核心坍缩的最庞大的前身星。
