Astronomers have observed the earliest moments of a supernova 500 million light-years away
SMRTR summary
Five hundred million light-years away, a dying star put on a show that astronomers are still puzzling over.
Earlier this year, the Einstein Probe satellite caught a burst of X-rays from a distant galaxy, triggering a rapid response from telescopes on the ground. What they found was a rare, front-row view of a supernova's very first moments, the precise instant a shockwave breaks through a star's surface.
The explosion, now named SN 2026gzf, belongs to a class of supernovae typically linked to gamma-ray bursts, some of the most violent events in the cosmos. But this one is behaving strangely. Researcher Brendan O'Connor noted that "multi-wavelength follow-up observations using the most sensitive facilities found no evidence for a relativistic jet or an afterglow." He suggested the jet may have been "choked" before escaping.
The star was roughly 20 times the mass of our Sun. Why it went quiet remains an open question.
SMRTR provides this summary for quick context. The original article belongs to NotebookCheck.
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