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Stargazers Witness Birth of Supernova

Posted May 22, 08 3:43 AM CDT in Science & Health 

(Newser) – A  pair of Princeton astronomers have become the first people ever to witness the explosive death of a star, Space.com reports. The pair were observing another supernova in its later stages when they happened to spot a huge burst of X-rays 90 million light years away. Astronomers believe their observations will fill in some blanks in knowledge about this cosmic phenomenon.

"For years we have dreamed of seeing a star just as it was exploding, but actually finding one is a once-in-a-lifetime event," said one of the Princeton stargazers. "We were in the right place, at the right time, with the right telescope, and witnessed history."

Source Space.com

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In this image provided by NASA, seemingly out of nowhere, Supernova 2008D burst onto the scene in January, as seen in ultraviolet images and X-ray images taken by NASA's Swift Satellite.   (AP Photo)
This artist's illustration provided by NASA shows what the brightest supernova ever recorded, known as SN 2006gy, may have looked like when it exploded.   (AP Photo)
This X-ray image of the supernova remnant E0102-72 shows an expanding multimillion degree ring of oxygen that was created deep inside a massive star and hurled into space by the explosion of the star.   (KRT Photos)
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An artist's rendering of the shock wave discovered by Princeton University's Alicia Soderberg and a team of scientists.   (PAWstaff)

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NASA  • astronomy  • stars  • star  • supernova  • galaxy


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