In these images provided by NASA, Supernova 2008D burst onto the scene on Jan. 9, 2008, as seen in ultraviolet images and X-ray images taken by NASA's Swift Satellite. Astronomers for the first time witnessed the start of the end of a star's life as it exploded into a supernova. A close-up X-ray image of the supernova is at left. At right, the supernova is seen in galaxy NGC 2770.
What an event
Astronomers for the first time witnessed the start of one of the universe's most fiery events: the end of a star's life as it exploded into a supernova. On Jan. 9, astronomers used a NASA X-ray satellite to spy on a star already well into its death throes, when another star in the same galaxy started to explode.
Quotes
• "A star exploded right before my eyes," lead author Alicia Soderberg, an astrophysics researcher at Princeton University, said Wednesday in a teleconference. She likened it to "winning the astronomy lottery. We caught the whole thing from start-to-finish on tape."
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• "As much energy is released in one second by the death of a star as by all the other stars you can see in the visible universe," said astronomy professor Alex Filippenko of the University of California at Berkeley
SOURCE: The Associated Press
On the Net: NASA: http://tiny.azstarnet.com/1136
