Amateur astronomer made the first in the history of the birth of a supernova
Astronomer-Amateur from Argentina managed to make the first of a series of photographs of the early stages of a supernova. Previously, such images could not be done even for professional astronomers. This was reported on the website of the publishing house Nature. The article describing the observations was published in the journal Nature.
September 20, Argentinian Victor But noticed the growing spot of light in the galaxy NGC 613. Making a series of photographs, he realized that he saw the beginning of the birth of a supernova.
Astronomers believe these pictures a great success, in comparison with winning the lottery. Earlier, supernova was able to notice only after several hours after the light of the explosion reach the Earth.
But managed to film the beginning of the explosion for 90 minutes.
On their observations, But announced by the International astronomical Union. His photos will help to test several models describing the explosion of a supernova, in the meantime the article in Nature contains only preliminary observations.
Spiral galaxy NGC 613 is located 95 million light-years from Earth. The type of supernova that astronomers have seen, occurs when the core of a massive star ends hydrogen, helium and other light elements participating in the thermonuclear synthesis. At some point during the fusion reaction, more energy begins to be absorbed than to stand out and the star starts to shrink. Compression ends with a supernova explosion — relief of the outer shell.