James Griffiths - Shockwave of an exploding star seen for the first time
It lasted only 20 minutes and took
place 1.2 billion light years away, but NASA managed to catch it on camera: a
star exploding. The brilliant flash of
an exploding star's shockwave -- or "shock breakout" -- has been
captured for the first time in visible light by the Kepler space telescope. An international team
of researchers analyzed some 50 trillion stars photographed by Kepler over a
three-year period, searching for supernovae.
A supernova occurs at
the end of a massive star's life, as a colossal, catastrophic explosion erupts,
causing the star to burn brighter than some galaxies for around two weeks before
fading to black.
The team analyzing the
Kepler data found exactly what they were looking for: a red supergiant 500
times the size of our sun and around 1.2 billion light years away exploded
while in the telescope's view. Lead researcher Peter
Garnavich, an astrophysics professor at the University of Notre Dame, said in a statement that the star is so colossal that
"Earth's orbit around the sun would fit comfortably within (it)."
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/21/world/exploding-star-nasa-kepler/index.html