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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."
Now, Who put metal in the microwave?
Does anyone else taste blue?
To be precise we don't see anything in real-time.
love is just extroverted narcissism
time is relative. if you see it now, it's real time. Too bad is not naked eye close.
-- All this knowledge is giving me a raging brainer.
"That means they watched in 'real time' something that happened about 100 million years ago?"
Thanks, HughesNet!
Whale
I thought it read 'Superman Birth Observed..
I'm far too tired for slashdot..
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
Yes, it happened ~100 million years ago and from our point of view we just watched it in real time.
And the sun in the sky is 8 minutes old.
And your conscious mind is 1/2 second behind.
And I'd really rather you not remind me of disturbing things like this and leave me in peace with my bottle of Cragganmore. Now go away.
Yes, space is big and light takes a long time to get to us. By 'real time', they mean they are watching the photons coming from the actual death of the star, and not the photons coming from the debris from years and years later.
Since nothing that is observed is happening at the time of the observation, real time is as good a term as any.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I thought it was the beans I had eaten the night before.
All things are relative and all my relatives are things ......
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
The dangers of firing up the Large Hadron Collider. Repent now, ye scientists, before we create a black hole! Or cause the sun to go nova! Or cause a Spice Girls Reunion Tour!
This may seem like a silly question, but were the astronomers able to capture data of the entire event, starting before the initial burst of energy was observed?
Were they already recording data when the new supernova became apparent, is there some sort of "astronomical TiVo that continuously records data in the hopes of inadvertently observing an event such as this one, or did the scientists need to press 'record' once they observed the initial burst of energy?
I only ask, because the article's comparision to "winning the lottery" seems fairly apt, as the odds of observing such an event purely by chance must be extremely (some would say "astronomically") low.
Also, the star's behavior immediately before the supernova could possibly provide interesting data as well. Even a *lack* of "interesting" data would be useful in its own right.
Is it standard procedure to record every scrap of data that is received by such a facility, or do the scientists only record data once the telescope is in position, aimed at a relevant target, etc?
I'm not quite sure where I'm going with all this... mostly just curiosity. It seems that the scientists got very lucky with this observation. Hopefully we can learn something from it, and increase our understanding of the universe!
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
How long ago?
Wouldn't it be mostly visible to someone with x-ray vision only? Plus if it was too close, too large a dose of x-rays probably wouldn't be a good thing.
By your definition, nothing you see is real time.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I see photons hitting my retina in real time.
Heavier elements (like uranium) are actually created in the supernova event itself:
So this observation is actually recording the actual origin of all the elements heavier than iron. All the jewelry and aerospace materials you've ever seen, all the copper you use in wiring and plumbing, all elements with atomic numbers from 27 (cobalt) through 94 (plutonium) were made in crucibles like the one we just took home movies of.
--
make install -not war
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
Not actually true, signal propagation from your retina to your visual cortex is not instantaneous.
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
-kfg
Yeah that's right, another dupe from slashdot; this story was covered 97 million years ago when it actually happened.
That depends on what you define as 'seeing'. Is it conformational change in opsins (light-sensitive proteins) or conscious awareness of seeing something?
Supernovas all look the same at birth but it's proper form to smile politely and congratulate the parents anyway.
Whoever wrote the summary of the story on Ars had a bad day. The figure in Joules is right, but it came when the energy hit the surface of the existing star, not whatever remnant remains of the core.
______ This mind intentionally left blank.
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."
I think they mean SN 2008D, the new supernova that was just detected by its X-ray flash. SN 2007uy was the old (31 Dec 2007) supernova they were observing at the time that SN 2008D went off.
Exactly.
Even if I hold a flashlight right next to my eyeball (ouch!) and turn it on, there is still a small -- albeit infinitesimally small -- delay between the point when the photons exit the flashlight and when they impact my retina. Thus, I am not watching the flashlight turn on in "real time", although for all practical purposes, it is close enough.
</pedantic>
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
nothing you see is real time.
D'uh!
I drank what? -- Socrates
If it's anything like my Chevy Nova it should light up the night sky!
All glory to the Hypnotoad!
Well the nova that made the Crab Nebula (witnessed in 1054AD) was visible during the day and there don't seem to have been too many ill effects. High energy radiation of the gamma/xray type makes up the minority of energy released during these events, and thanks to the inverse-square law, not much will have hit us anyways.
Debian FTW
Since nothing that is observed is happening at the time of the observation, real time is as good a term as any.
Ooh, that was good, and just about closes the book on the whole argument.
In fact, now that you mention it that way, a lot of things are starting to make more sense.
Words to live by.
Lil' Thindime, lilting a lacrimose lament, krashes the kwaint konfines of Kokonino Kounty
So is there some sort of automated system which gets every major telescope on, or orbiting, the planet to drop what it's doing and point at supernovae (if they can see them) as they appear? Or does someone have to get a telephone directory out and start asking some unfortunate Chilean the way to the beach in a loud voice?
I understand that astronomers have been wanting to gather as much data as they can from as many telescopes as they can on supernovae as they appear, and have organised lots of telescopes en masse before, I just wonder by what means it's achieved.
I also think that it would be incredibly cool if, in the dusty control room of an observatory up a mountain in Hawaii or somewhere, there was a big red button labeled "push in case of supernova", which grabbed the co-ordinates currently being observed, and took over every other telescope on the planet to point at them.
Also, have they done interferometry with this data? because that would be an awesomely large telescope diameter (and awesomely small resolution angle).
FGD 135
As far as rare events, go, there has been one tsunami (boxing day tsunami), one spectacular comet (McNaught) and now a super-nova witnessed from the beginning...any other rare events we can look forward to?
Debian FTW
The fact that we can't tell with absolute precision how long the light has been traveling is a good example of why we use the term real time. In our frame of reference, it is happening in real time.
Of course it should! That's what happens when you put two Ford Pintos into the super collider!
Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"
Since nothing that is observed is happening at the time of the observation, real time is as good a term as any.
I'd say that since according to Relativity we're observing this event at the earliest point in time it would be physically possible for us to observe it, "real time" is a great term.
The enemies of Democracy are
That means they watched in 'real time' something that happened about 100 million years ago?
Yeah, exactly. Wake me up when a supernova explodes down the street.
Actually there are inertial frames in which this supernova practically just exploded, e.g. that of the neutrinos which just arrived here from the supernova traveling at almost the speed of light. They would see their flight path undergo Lorentz contraction; as the velocity approaches c the distance shrinks to zero.
Were any neutrino telescopes collecting data at the time? If so, did they see a signal? The delay between the time of arrival of the X-ray burst and the neutrino signal would put bounds on the mass of the neutrino. Given the distance to the supernova, there probably wasn't much of a signal, but it would be interesting to know if anything was seen.
Looks like the USS Drox just went supercritical.
Hey, which crazy thing happening are you guys screaming about?
Ice Cream has no bones.
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.
Completely unrelated, but I had to go back and reread the first name after seeing that surname:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenna
is another Soderberg that geeks might be familiar with.
Tim.
God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = -@B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t," and there was light.
I'm glad you brought that up. I mentioned this to my dad a while back (I used the figure of a 1/4 second but close enough) and he gave me that deer in the headlights look for a few seconds as it just dawned on him what I said.
It's funny to think we are living "behind" real time yet our body keeps (most of) us functioning normally. Evolution is interesting, isn't it?
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Hydrogen burning into helium - 10 million years
Helium burning into carbon and oxygen - 1 million years
Carbon burning into neon, sodium, magnesium, and aluminum - 1,000 years
Neon burning into magnesium - 3 years
Oxygen burning into silicon, sulfur, argon, and calcium - 0.3 years
Silicon burning into iron - 5 days
Catching a Type II Supernova in the shock breakout - Priceless
(copyleft MandyDaxon@BadAstronomy)
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"