SN 2008D:
Supernova Caught in Act of Exploding
On January 9, 2008, NASA's Swift satellite was used to fortuitously observe
a very bright X-ray outburst in the spiral galaxy NGC 2770, located 90
million light-years from Earth. In a Nature paper, astronomers show that
the properties of the X-ray outburst are consistent with a shock wave
bursting through the surface of a massive star that has just collapsed, the
first time such an event has been seen. This outburst marked the very early
stages of a supernova explosion called SN 2008D.
This discovery triggered a large international collaboration, using a fleet
of space-based observatories and ground-based telescopes. Shown here is a
Chandra X-ray Observatory image of the region around SN 2008D, obtained
about 10 days after the supernova explosion. The lowest energy X-rays are
shown in red, intermediate energy X-rays in green and high energies in
blue. The faint red source in the upper right is SN 2008D. The other 3
X-ray sources are unrelated to this supernova.
The Chandra observations helped show that this was a normal supernova
rather than one associated with a gamma ray burst. They were also used to
help calculate the variation of the supernova's X-ray emission with time,
allowing estimates to be made of the radius of the star that exploded and
the mass-loss rate just before the explosion.
| Fast Facts for SN 2008D: |
| Credit |
NASA/CXC/Wisconsin/D.Pooley et al. |
| Scale |
Image is
1 arcmin across. |
| Category |
Supernovas & Supernova Remnants |
| Coordinates (J2000) |
RA 09h 09m 30.70s | Dec 33° 08' 19.1 |
| Constellation |
Monoceros |
| Observation Dates |
01/19/2008 |
| Observation Time |
5 hours |
| Obs. IDs |
9104 |
| Color Code |
Red (0.5-1.2 keV); Green (1.2-2.5 keV); Blue (2.5-6.0 keV) |
| Instrument |
ACIS |
| References | Soderberg et al. 2008, Nature, in press. |
| Distance Estimate |
90 million light years
|
| Release Date |
May 21, 2008 |
|
|
