Kepler finds first visible-light sign of supernova shock breakout
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.029679
Guardian : Over a three-year span, NASA’s Kepler space telescope captured two stars going supernova. Just before one of the stars exploded, researchers spotted evidence of a shockwave and pulse of light, an event that is thought to allow the star to self-destruct. This is the first sighting with visible light and with a high level of detail. Such a pre-explosion signal had previously been seen only in x-ray images. Brad Tucker of the Australian National University and his colleagues think the other star was so large that the shockwave wasn’t strong enough to escape the star’s gravity. The researchers hope that further analysis of Kepler data will reveal more supernovas, especially now that the telescope’s field of view has been expanded to include many galaxies.
