SPACE Talk about a spectacular light show. Astronomers were able to observe the brilliant flash of an exploding stars shockwave for the first time.
NASA captured the event with the Kepler space telescope. An international team of scientists analyzed light captured by the telescope over a three-year period from 500 distant galaxies, searching some 50 trillion stars, according to NASA.
In 2011, two massive stars exploded while in Keplers view. Both have really great names. KSN 2011a is nearly 300 times the size of our sun and about 700 million light years from earth. The second is KSN 2011d and is about 500 times the size of our sun and about 1.2 billion light years away. Rest in peace, KSN 2011a and KSN 2011d.
To put their size into perspective, Earth's orbit about our sun would fit comfortably within these colossal stars, said Peter Garnavich, an astrophysics professor at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana and team lead for the project. In order to see something that happens on timescales of minutes, like a shock breakout, you want to have a camera continuously monitoring the sky. You dont know when a supernova is going to go off, and Kepler's vigilance allowed us to be a witness as the explosion began.
The shock breakout only lasts about 20 minutes, so catching it as it happened was as a major milestone for astronomers, according to NASA. For the explosion to reach its maximum brightness, it took 14 days. The maximum brightness is about a billion times brighter than the sun, according to NASA.
Observing the two explosions revealed some unexpected variety for scientists. While both explosions packed a similar punch, there was no shock breakout seen in the smaller star. Scientists believe that is likely due to the smaller star being surrounded by gas, which may have masked the shockwave, according to NASA.
That is the puzzle of these results, said Garnavich. You look at two supernovae and see two different things. Thats maximum diversity.
Keplers primary mission ended in 2013 with the failure of reaction wheels that helped keep it steady, but scientists are doing a second mission called K2 with the telescope.
"While Kepler cracked the door open on observing the development of these spectacular events, K2 will push it wide open observing dozens more supernovae," said Tom Barclay, senior research scientist and director of the Kepler and K2 guest observer office at Ames. "These results are a tantalizing preamble to what's to come from K2."
NASA captured the event with the Kepler space telescope. An international team of scientists analyzed light captured by the telescope over a three-year period from 500 distant galaxies, searching some 50 trillion stars, according to NASA.
In 2011, two massive stars exploded while in Keplers view. Both have really great names. KSN 2011a is nearly 300 times the size of our sun and about 700 million light years from earth. The second is KSN 2011d and is about 500 times the size of our sun and about 1.2 billion light years away. Rest in peace, KSN 2011a and KSN 2011d.
To put their size into perspective, Earth's orbit about our sun would fit comfortably within these colossal stars, said Peter Garnavich, an astrophysics professor at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana and team lead for the project. In order to see something that happens on timescales of minutes, like a shock breakout, you want to have a camera continuously monitoring the sky. You dont know when a supernova is going to go off, and Kepler's vigilance allowed us to be a witness as the explosion began.
The shock breakout only lasts about 20 minutes, so catching it as it happened was as a major milestone for astronomers, according to NASA. For the explosion to reach its maximum brightness, it took 14 days. The maximum brightness is about a billion times brighter than the sun, according to NASA.
Observing the two explosions revealed some unexpected variety for scientists. While both explosions packed a similar punch, there was no shock breakout seen in the smaller star. Scientists believe that is likely due to the smaller star being surrounded by gas, which may have masked the shockwave, according to NASA.
That is the puzzle of these results, said Garnavich. You look at two supernovae and see two different things. Thats maximum diversity.
Keplers primary mission ended in 2013 with the failure of reaction wheels that helped keep it steady, but scientists are doing a second mission called K2 with the telescope.
"While Kepler cracked the door open on observing the development of these spectacular events, K2 will push it wide open observing dozens more supernovae," said Tom Barclay, senior research scientist and director of the Kepler and K2 guest observer office at Ames. "These results are a tantalizing preamble to what's to come from K2."