NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

NASA's Swift Satellite Catches a Star Going 'Kaboom!'

When a gigantic star blows up, astronomers call it a "supernova." Over the past 100 years, astronomers have observed thousands of these explosions. But in every case, they were seeing the star after the explosion took place. They were seeing the hot debris from the explosion racing outward. It would be like seeing fireworks a few seconds after they go off, when the colorful lights are shooting away from the puff of smoke that mark the locations of the actual explosion.

Now, thanks to NASA’s Swift satellite, astronomers have seen a star actually blow up. The discovery is due to Swift’s capabilities and some alert astronomers, but also a bit of good luck.

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Pipsqueak Star Unleashes Monster Flare

An artist depicts the incredibly powerful flare that erupted from the red dwarf star EV Lacertae. Credit: Casey Reed/NASA
> Larger image For many years scientists have known that our Sun gives off powerful explosions known as flares. These flares contain millions of times more energy than atomic bombs, so they are very powerful by human standards.

But when astronomers compare flares from the sun to flares on other stars, the sun’s flares lose. On April 25, NASA’s Swift satellite picked up a record-setting flare from a star known as EV Lacertae. This flare was thousands of times more powerful than the greatest observed solar flare. But because EV Lacertae is much farther from Earth than the sun, the flare did not appear as bright as a solar flare. Still, it was the brightest flare ever seen from a star other than the sun.

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Mission Update:

For mission updates visit the Swift Mission Director's Status Report Log.

Swift is a first-of-its-kind multi-wavelength observatory dedicated to the study of gamma-ray burst (GRB) science. Its three instruments will work together to observe GRBs and afterglows in the gamma ray, X-ray, ultraviolet, and optical wavebands. The main mission objectives for Swift are to:

• Determine the origin of gamma-ray bursts
• Classify gamma-ray bursts and search for new types
• Determine how the blastwave evolves and interacts with the surroundings
• Use gamma-ray bursts to study the early universe
• Perform the first sensitive hard X-ray survey of the sky