Death flash of an exploding star seen by planet-hunting Kepler telescope
In a first, the alien planet hunting telescope Kepler has seen a bright flash of a shockwave sent out by an exploding star at the end of its life.
The shockwave was propelled out into the universe by a red supergiant star, which exploded in 2011, 1.2 billion light-years from Earth. The star was about about 500 times the size of the sun.
The bright flash of the supernova's shockwave -- known as the "shock breakout" -- is only visible for about 20 minutes, according to current models, so actually seeing it is incredibly difficult.
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“In order to see something that happens on timescales of minutes, like a shock breakout, you want to have a camera continuously monitoring the sky,” Peter Garnavich, one of the scientists involved in the research, said in a statement.
“You don’t know when a supernova is going to go off, and Kepler's vigilance allowed us to be a witness as the explosion began.”
Garnavich manages a team that is looking at the light seen by Kepler every 30 minutes from 50 trillion stars in 500 galaxies over the course of three years looking for supernovas.
Scientists are particularly interested in learning more about how stars like this explode because it could help explain the ins and outs of how supernovas spread their material throughout their host galaxies.
Supernovas like this one seen by Kepler happen when a star larger than the sun runs out of fuel, causing it to collapse and explode.
"All heavy elements in the universe come from supernova explosions. For example, all the silver, nickel, and copper in the earth and even in our bodies came from the explosive death throes of stars," Steve Howell, Kepler project scientist, said in the statement. "Life exists because of supernovae."
Another star about 300 times the size of the sun was also seen by Kepler when it went supernova in 2011, but scientists didn't see a shock breakout associated with it.
This may be because the second, smaller star was shielded in gas, possibly obscuring the bright flash of the shock breakout, according to the study detailing the supernova findings accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal.
“That is the puzzle of these results,” Garnavich said. “You look at two supernovae and see two different things. That’s maximum diversity.”
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Miriam Kramer worked as a staff writer for Space.com for about 2.5 years before joining Mashable to cover all things outer space. She took a ride in weightlessness on a zero-gravity flight and watched rockets launch to space from places around the United States. Miriam received her Master's degree in science, health and environmental reporting from New York University in 2012, and she originally hails from Knoxville, Tennessee. Follow Miriam on Twitter at @mirikramer.
