SN 2008D - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

SN 2008D is a supernova

Supernova

A supernova is a stellar explosion that is more energetic than a nova. It is pronounced with the plural supernovae or supernovas. Supernovae are extremely luminous and cause a burst of radiation that often briefly outshines an entire galaxy, before fading from view over several weeks or months...

detected with NASA

NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...

's Swift
Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission
The Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission consists of a robotic spacecraft called Swift, which was launched into orbit on 20 November 2004, 17:16:00 UTC on a Delta II 7320-10C expendable launch vehicle. Swift is managed by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and was developed by an international...

X-ray

X-ray

X-radiation is a form of electromagnetic radiation. X-rays have a wavelength in the range of 0.01 to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30 petahertz to 30 exahertz and energies in the range 120 eV to 120 keV. They are shorter in wavelength than UV rays and longer than gamma...

telescope. The explosion of the supernova precursor star

Star

A star is a massive, luminous sphere of plasma held together by gravity. At the end of its lifetime, a star can also contain a proportion of degenerate matter. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth...

, in the spiral galaxy

Spiral galaxy

A spiral galaxy is a certain kind of galaxy originally described by Edwin Hubble in his 1936 work The Realm of the Nebulae and, as such, forms part of the Hubble sequence. Spiral galaxies consist of a flat, rotating disk containing stars, gas and dust, and a central concentration of stars known as...

NGC 2770

NGC 2770 is a type SASc spiral galaxy located about 88 million light years away, in the constellation Lynx.It has been referred to as the 'Supernova Factory' as three supernovas have occurred there recently: SN 1999eh, SN 2007uy, and SN 2008D...

(88 million light years away (27 Mpc

Parsec

The parsec is a unit of length used in astronomy. It is about 3.26 light-years, or just under 31 trillion kilometres ....

), was detected on January 9, 2008, by Carnegie-Princeton fellows Alicia Soderberg and Edo Berger, and Albert Kong and Tom Maccarone independently using Swift. They alerted eight other orbiting and ground-based observatories to record the event. This was the first time that astronomers have ever observed a supernova as it occurred.

The supernova was determined to be of Type Ibc

Type Ib and Ic supernovae

Types Ib and Ic supernovae are categories of stellar explosions that are caused by the core collapse of massive stars. These stars have shed their outer envelope of hydrogen, and, when compared to the spectrum of Type Ia supernovae, they lack the absorption line of silicon...

. The velocities measured from SN2008D indicated expansion rates of more than 10,000 kilometers per second. The explosion was off-center, with gas on one side of the explosion moving outward faster than on the other. This was the first time the X-ray emission pattern of a supernova (which only lasted about five minutes) was captured at the moment of its birth. Now that it is known what X-ray pattern to look for, the next generation of X-ray satellites is expected to find hundreds of supernovae every year exactly when they explode, which will allow searches for neutrino

Neutrino

A neutrino is an electrically neutral, weakly interacting elementary subatomic particle with a half-integer spin, chirality and a disputed but small non-zero mass. It is able to pass through ordinary matter almost unaffected...

and gravitational wave

Gravitational wave

In physics, gravitational waves are theoretical ripples in the curvature of spacetime which propagates as a wave, traveling outward from the source. Predicted to exist by Albert Einstein in 1916 on the basis of his theory of general relativity, gravitational waves theoretically transport energy as...

bursts that are predicted to accompany the collapse of stellar cores and the birth of neutron star

Neutron star

A neutron star is a type of stellar remnant that can result from the gravitational collapse of a massive star during a Type II, Type Ib or Type Ic supernova event. Such stars are composed almost entirely of neutrons, which are subatomic particles without electrical charge and with a slightly larger...

s.

"Supernovae are the explosions of massive stars—stars more than 8 times the mass of the Sun—whose cores run out of nuclear fuel and collapse in on themselves to form a neutron star or a black hole

Black hole

A black hole is a region of spacetime from which nothing, not even light, can escape. The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will deform spacetime to form a black hole. Around a black hole there is a mathematically defined surface called an event horizon that...

. In the process they launch a powerful shock wave that blows up the star. Until now, observations of these objects have been of the aftermath, typically several days after the initial explosion."

See also