Very, very cool news today: for the first time in history,
astronomers have unambiguously observed the exact moment when a star explodes
The Quick Version NGC 2770 is a galaxy at the relatively close distance of 84 million light years away. On January 9, 2008, a massive star in it exploded, and instead of finding out days or weeks later, astronomers caught it in the act, right at the moment, in flagrante delicto. The image above, from the Gemini observatory, shows the galaxy and its new supernova. We've seen lots of stars explode; thousands in fact. But because of the mechanics of how a star actually explodes, by the time we notice the light getting brighter, the explosion may be hours or even days old. This time, because it was caught so early, astronomers will learn a whole passel of new knowledge about supernovae. That's the brief summary... ...
