The Dusty and Extremely Red Progenitor of the Type II Supernova 2023ixf in Messier 101

Understand

Stars with initial masses in the range of 8-25 solar masses are thought to end their lives as hydrogen-rich supernovae (SNe II).

• Based on the pre-explosion images of Hubble Space Telescope ($HST$) and $Spitzer$ Space Telescope, we place tight constraints on the progenitor candidate of type IIP SN 2023ixf in Messier 101.
• Fitting of the spectral energy distribution (SED) of its progenitor with dusty stellar spectral models results in an estimation of the effective temperature as 3091$^{+422}_{-258}$ K.
• The luminosity is estimated as log($L/$L$_{\odot}$)$\sim4.83$, consistent with a red supergiant (RSG) star with an initial mass of 12$^{+2}_{-1}$ M$_{\odot}$.