First author

Credit: B. WILSON PRINCETON UNIV.

Supernovae are stellar explosions. Typically, it takes about a month for them to become visible enough to be discovered by ground-based telescopes. As a result, the neutrinos and gravitational waves generated during a supernova's early days, which might provide a better understanding of the underlying explosive mechanism, have gone unexamined. On 9 January, astronomer Alicia Soderberg at Princeton University in New Jersey caught a supernova's first moments by detecting a short-lived X-ray outburst (see page 469). This was produced by photons bursting from behind the shock wave caused by the star's explosive core collapse from lack of fuel. Soderberg tells Nature that this shock-wave signature will soon allow astronomers to routinely witness the birth of supernovae ).

Was it skill or luck that led to your finding this X-ray outburst?

Luck was definitely involved. I happened to be using the Swift X-ray Telescope to observe a different supernova that occurred in the same galaxy in December 2007. Because I was looking at data as it came off the satellite, I realized something new had just exploded in that galaxy. We could probably resolve many mysteries by examining data as they arrive.

What caught your attention?

The X-ray outburst was significantly more luminous than the outbursts typically produced by neutron stars or black holes, but was not as luminous as the gamma-ray outbursts that accompany a small fraction of this type of core-collapse supernova. Our observation ultimately confirmed the existence of an outburst of intermediate intensity. Such an outburst was predicted in the 1960s, but had never been seen.

Was it difficult to quickly convince other observatories to collect data?

Telescopes can focus on new objects quickly once the source of the signal is known. But because to begin with we didn't know what had produced the X-ray outburst, organizing the telescopic observations in the first 24 hours involved frantic phone calls, e-mails and a few favours. I didn't sleep for a good week, but because we caught the star exploding and alerted the rest of the world, this is perhaps the best-studied supernova so far.

Will this discovery change supernova research?

Yes. For so long, finding supernovae was solely an optical game. But we show that X-ray observatories will soon play just as large a part in the field. This phenomenal discovery was serendipitous, but luck favours the prepared. I hope good fortune allows more discoveries down the road.