Supernova birth seen for first timeMay 22, 2008Pasadena, CA. Astronomers have seen the aftermath of spectacular stellar explosions known as supernovae before, but until now no one has witnessed a star dying in real time. While looking at another object in the spiral galaxy NGC 2770, using NASA's orbiting Swift telescope, Carnegie-Princeton fellows* Alicia Soderberg and Edo Berger detected an extremely luminous blast of X-rays released by a supernova explosion. They alerted 8 other orbiting and on-ground telescopes to turn their eyes on this first-of-its-kind event. The research appears in the May 22, 2008, issue of Nature magazine. "We were in the right place, at the right time, with the right telescope on January 9th and witnessed history," remarked Soderberg. "We were looking at another, older supernova in the galaxy, when the one now known as SN 2008D went off. We would have missed it if it weren't for Swift's real-time capabilities, wide field of view, and numerous instruments." Supernovae are the explosions of massive stars-stars more than 8 times the mass of the Sun-whose cores run out of nuclear fuel and collapse in on themselves to form a neutron star or a black hole. In the process they launch a powerful shock wave that blows up the star. Until now, observations of these objects have been of the aftermath, typically several days after the initial explosion, not the first instance of death. Astrophysicists have predicted nearly 4 decades ago that the first sign of a supernova would be an X-ray blast, but none had been witnessed before Soderberg's and Berger's Swift observations. "Using the most powerful radio, optical, and X-ray telescopes on the ground and in space we were able to observe the evolution of the explosion right from the start," said Berger. "This eventually confirmed that the big X-ray blast marked the birth of a supernova." This massive across-the-spectrum collaboration looked at SN 2008D for more than 30 days to rule out that the event was anything other than a supernova. They also determined that the object is a typical Type Ibc supernova and measured the size of the star prior to the explosion. "This first instance of catching the X-ray signature of stellar death is going to help us fill in a lot of gaps about the properties of massive stars, the birth of neutron stars and black holes, and the impact of supernovae on their environments," said Neil Gehrels, principal investigator of the Swift satellite. "We also now know what X-ray pattern to look for. Hopefully we will be able to find many more supernovae at this critical moment." The potential of finding a large number of supernovae at the time of explosion will also open up avenues of research that previously seemed nearly impossible. In particular, the determination of the exact explosion time will allow searches for neutrino and gravitational wave bursts that are predicted to accompany the collapse of the stellar core and the birth of the neutron star. "The next generation of X-ray satellites will find hundreds of supernovae every year exactly when they explode," said Soderberg. "I am thrilled that our discovery is leading this new wave of astronomy." More information on Swift can be found at: http://swift.gsfc.nasa.gov/ Carnegie Institution |
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| Related Supernovae Current Events and Supernovae News Articles International Team of Scientists Reports Discovery of a New Planet An international team of scientists, including several who are affiliated with UC Santa Barbara, has discovered a new planet the size of Jupiter. The finding is published in the March 18 issue of the journal Nature. Super Supernova: White Dwarf Star System Exceeds Mass Limit An international team led by Yale University has, for the first time, measured the mass of a type of supernova thought to belong to a unique subclass and confirmed that it surpasses what was believed to be an upper mass limit. Scientists discover 'catastrophic event' behind the halt of star birth in early galaxy formation Scientists have found evidence of a catastrophic event they believe was responsible for halting the birth of stars in a galaxy in the early Universe. Dark Matter Used to Measure Age of Universe Astronomers from the United States and Europe have used a gravitational lens -- a distant, light-bending clump of dark matter -- to make a new estimate of the Hubble constant, which determines the size and age of the universe. Astronomically Large Lenses Measure the Age and Size of the Universe Using entire galaxies as lenses to look at other galaxies, researchers have a newly precise way to measure the size and age of the universe and how rapidly it is expanding, on a par with other techniques. The Stars behind the Curtain ESO is releasing a magnificent VLT image of the giant stellar nursery surrounding NGC 3603, in which stars are continuously being born. Runaway anti-matter production makes for a spectacular stellar explosion University of Notre Dame astronomer Peter Garnavich and a team of collaborators have discovered a distant star that exploded when its center became so hot that matter and anti-matter particle pairs were created. Cosmic rays hunted down A thin rain of charged particles continually bombards our atmosphere from outer space. The mysterious particles were first detected 100 years ago but until 10 years ago when a new type of telescope began to come online physicists weren't sure where the "cosmic rays" came from or how they were generated. The first observations of the explosion of a star around 200 times the size of our sun reveals a new type of supernova What happens when a really gargantuan star - one hundreds of times bigger than our sun - blows up? Although a theory developed years ago describes what the explosion of such an enormous star should look like, no one had actually observed one - until now. A Superbright Supernova That's the First of Its Kind An extraordinarily bright, extraordinarily long-lasting supernova named SN 2007bi, snagged in a search by a robotic telescope, turns out to be the first example of the kind of stars that first populated the Universe. More Supernovae Current Events and Supernovae News Articles |
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