Supernova Birth Observed From Orbiting Telescope

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."

Comments

Someone has to have thought this

[zappepcs]

ring ring ... ring ring

Hello, NASA SWIFT office, how may I help you?

Er, this is.. uh... the decider man

cough! Ah, how may we help you Mr President?

yes, I .. I was just watching the television on the Internets .. hee hee, I had some help. but I understand that you have the power, or that hubble guy does... to ahhh.... find suns, even exploding ones. Is that right?

Why yes, Mr President, it is. We are quite fortunate to have the Hubble, thank you.

Well, err, I was thinking... sniff, what's that smell? .............sniff ... nevermind. I wanted to know, can Mr Hubble point his power toward ... ahh, the middle easts? Can he search out Saudi sons? We've ...we.. the boys and I, we've been trying to get this one to explode for a couple years now... and well, it would be might patriotic of Mr Hubble to help us with this one. Can I speak to him?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH click.......