Observation Of X-rays From Birth Of Supernova Leads To All-out Effort To Record Stellar Death
Wednesday, May 21, 2008 - 16:21
in Astronomy & Space
NASA's Swift satellite caught the rare birth of a supernova earlier this year, allowing astronomers to rapidly deploy ground-based telescopes to follow its evolution and learn about normal stellar explosions. Astronomers have analyzed the data to conclude that the original star was more than 30 times the mass of the sun, but only slightly larger, when its core ran out of fuel and imploded, blowing the star to smithereens.