Possible Detection of the Progenitor of the Type II Supernova SN 2023ixf

Abstract

Stellar evolution theory predicts multiple pathways to the explosive deaths of stars as supernovae. Locating and characterizing the progenitors of well-studied supernovae is important to constrain the theory, and to justify and design future surveys to improve on progenitor detections. Here we report the serendipitous pre-explosion imaging, by the Hubble Space Telescope, of SN2023ixf, one of the nearest extragalactic supernovae ever discovered, in the galaxy M101. The extremely red color and absolute magnitude M(F814W)=-5.42+/-0.06mag suggest that the progenitor was a red supergiant and comparison with stellar evolutionary isochrones suggests a mass of ~12M_Sun.