A supernova is a dying star, but one much bigger than Earth's sun. It first explodes outwards, then shrinks into itself to form an extremely dense, cold ball. Sometimes a neutron star results and sometimes a black hole.The death of a star has been witnessed as it occurred for the first time, a remarkable observation that will lead to new insights into this cataclysmic cosmic process.

Galaxies typically host a supernova - star death - only once or twice every century, making it nearly impossible to capture the instant it starts to spew energy into space, briefly shining brighter than billions of stars combined.

But the lucky glimpse by a satellite of the spectacular outburst from the very beginning has allowed astronomers from around the world to quickly follow up with eight other orbiting and ground-based telescopes and collect a wealth of new information on what happens when a star is blown to smithereens.

Before And After:


Sources:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtm...scisuper121.xml
http://bluecollarscientist.com/2008/03/07/...upernova-2008d/
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080521/sc_nm/supernova_dc

Fascinating. Thanks!

It's going to depend on what type of supernova it is. There are 2 types of supernova with 4 class levels and they have very different outcomes.

Type 1A, which is the most common, would be the least interesting because it's well modelled and well understood. It is referred to as an accretive supernova because the progenitor star (which is always a white dwarf or neutron star) needs to gain mass to explode. It occurs when a white dwarf accretes matter from a companion and over a very long period of time gains sufficient mass to overcome it's structure and collapse. After it blows out it's material it becomes a white dwarf all over again or perhaps a neuton star. BTW - a white dwarf is much smaller than the sun in physical size but has a similar mass.

The other type, with 3 classifications are core collapse supernovas and the stars that go supernova are much much larger than the sun in size and mass.

If it's type II it will be very interesting because these are very large stars, often 10-50x the mass of the sun, and this superova is a lot less understood, and much more dangerous to it's environment because of its' resulting widespread lethal radiation. If one of these happened within 10 light years of us (600 trillion miles) it could wipe out life on earth with little warning as radiation travels at a very high percentage rate of light speed. This is the textbook supernova that blows off 80% of itself back into space in a spectacular explosion that is very bright and can be seen across most of the universe. If the remaining material is roughly 3.25X as masive as the sun it becomes a stellar balck hole. If less it becomes a neutron star. The smaller the progenitor star is the more red it will be. The largest stars here will still be blue in color.

If it's type 1a or 1b (the other two classifications) it will be the most interesting of all. These are supermassive stars 50-150X as massive as the sun, always blue in color and have the most extreme violent outcomes, always resulting in a black hole. They are sometimes referred to as halo novas and often throw off very intense gamma ray bursts (GRB for short). A GRB's radiation is so intense that it lilely would kill off life to any planet in it's path anywhere in a galaxy. Naturally these are the rarest of supernova's. The more well known candidates for this type of supernova in our galaxy are the stars Rigel, 70x as massive as our sun (very visible in Orion in winter and it is diagonally opposite the big red giant Betelgeuse - which itself is a Type II supernova candidate) and the the most massive star known in our galaxy - Eta Carinae which is 100-130X the mass of our sun. The latter can only be seen in the southern hemisphere and only with a radio telescope as it is blowing off the equivalent of our sun each year and this material obscures the star.