Supernova Birth Observed From Orbiting Telescope 94
FiReaNGeL writes "Astronomers have seen the aftermath of spectacular stellar explosions known as supernovae before, but no one had witnessed a star dying in real time — until now. While looking at another object in the spiral galaxy NGC 2770, using NASA's orbiting Swift telescope, scientists detected an extremely luminous blast of X-rays released by a supernova explosion. They alerted 8 other telescopes to turn their eyes on this first-of-its-kind event. '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.'" Bad Astronomy has an excellent, well-illustrated story about the discovery as well. I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property contributes a link to the BBC's coverage, and adds a nugget gleaned from Ars Technica: "SN 2007uy's collapse caused an X-ray burst of about 10^39 joules, most likely due to the 'shock break out' when the energy of the core's collapse finally reached the neutron star's surface."
Re:Interesting use of the term 'real time' (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Data? (Score:3, Informative)
On a completely unrelated note
Have you ever seen a supernova blow up?
No, but if its anything like my old chevy nova it will light up the night sky
CORRECTION - I made a mistake in that submission (Score:5, Informative)
That should've been SN 2008D, not SN 2007uy. I confused the old supernova with the new one somehow, which is pretty bad considering it even has the year as part of the name. The NEW supernova is the one whose X-ray burst released approximately 10^39 joules.
Also, the unnamed "scientists" who were lucky enough to find this are Alicia Soderberg of Princeton University & her colleagues, just so we give credit where credit is due.
- I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property [eff.org]
Re:"in real time" (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Obligatory Back to the Future joke (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Watching the Postironic Genesis (Score:5, Informative)
Nucleo-genesis doesn't stop at plutonium. The transuranic elements get created just as well. The only difference between them and the elements up to and including plutonium is longevity. I'll bet a lot of astronomers were vying for scope access so they could look for elements in the island of stability. [wikipedia.org]
Re:Any signal on a neutrino telescope? (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, the neutrino burst would arrive before the X-ray burst. The neutrinos are released as the degenerate gas at the stellar core collapses to neutronium; they pass through the surrounding material as if it wasn't even there, and set out into the universe immediately.
Once the neutron core has formed, further infalling matter hits the hardest surface in the universe, and this produces a colossal shock. The X-ray burst is released only when this shock wave reaches the surface of the star. That won't take long, but it's long enough; the neutrinos are already far out into space.
The principle still holds, of course; the neutrino mass affects the neutrino velocity, and so the timing of the two bursts will give us data on those quantities. But the delay will probably be in quite the opposite direction to what you suggested.