Supernova Caught Exploding On Camera

If you like science and astronomy, you may like this next story at Yahoo News:

Excited astronomers said on Wednesday they had for the first time caught a supernova on camera just as it was exploding, and they may now learn how to spot others.

By luck, they spotted a burst of X-rays while looking at another part of a distant galaxy, and managed to turn a variety of telescopes in the right direction just in time.

"For years, we have dreamed of seeing a star just as it was exploding," said Alicia Soderberg of Princeton University in New Jersey, who led the international team of astronomers. "We were in the right place, at the right time, with the right telescope, on January 9th and witnessed history," she added in a statement.


A supernova is a dying star, but one much bigger than Earth's sun. It first explodes outwards, then shrinks into itself to form an extremely dense, cold ball. Sometimes a neutron star results and sometimes a black hole.

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