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 06 July 2008 00:57 BST

Astronomers make history by witnessing supernova birth

Thursday, 22 May 2008 00:01
Astronomers witness birth of supernova for first time ever

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The birth of a supernova has been seen by human eyes for the first time, with a pair of astronomers making history in California.

While the aftermath of a supernova - the explosion of a star more than eight times the mass of the Sun - has been witnessed before, no one had ever seen the death of a star in real time until Carnegie-Princeton fellows Alicia Soderberg and Edo Berger stumbled on the birth.

And their fortuitous discovery could be at the forefront of a "new wave of astronomy", allowing scientists to potentially discover a wealth of previously unknown information about star size and the birth of neutron stars and black holes.

Astrophysicists had predicted almost 40 years ago that the first sign of a supernova would be a blast of X-rays and while observing another object in the NGC 2770 galaxy, Ms Soderberg and Mr Berger witnessed the supernova's birth.

"We were in the right place, at the right time, with the right telescope on January 9th and witnessed history," Ms Soderberg explains in the research published in the May 22nd issue of Nature magazine.

"We were looking at another, older supernova in the galaxy when the one now known as SN 2008D went off."

She said they would most likely have missed the event were it not for the "real-time capabilities, wide field of view and numerous instruments" of Nasa's orbiting Swift telescope.

Neil Gehrels, the principal investigator of the satellite, said that being aware of which X-ray pattern to look for would hopefully help astronomers uncover countless more supernovae at the moment of birth.

"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." End of story


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