Telescope “Kepler” was first recorded outbreak of a supernova in the optical range – TASS

WASHINGTON, 22 March. / Corr. Ivan Lebedev TASS /. An international team of scientists was able to observe first flash of a supernova in the optical range. As reported on Monday, NASA’s, experts from the University of Notre Dame in the US state of Indiana, working under the direction of Professor Peter Garnavicha, managed to make it in the processing of the data received orbiting telescope “Kepler”.

Astrophysics “studied the light, which was recorded “Kepler” every 30 minutes for three consecutive years under the supervision of 500 distant galaxies with the 50 trillion stars, “noted the US space agency. “They’re looking for signs of the explosions of massive stars, known as supernovae,” – said NASA

According to him, “in 2011, two of these massive stars, called red supergiant exploded while in the field of” Kepler “. . The first of these, having the designation KCN 2011a, almost 300 times larger than the Sun and located at a distance of 700 million light years from Earth. The second star KCN 2011d about 500 times larger than the Sun and is removed from the planet at a distance of 1.2 billion light years .

“In size, they could be compared with a sphere with a radius equal to the distance from the Earth to the Sun” -. Garnavich said He stressed that the supernova and the output shock wave lasts no more than 20 minutes, and therefore “catch” them -. a great success for astronomers Previously, such phenomena were recorded only by orbiting telescopes in X-rays

Scientists hope that the discovery will help them better understand the phenomenon of supernovae, which are formed when the heavenly. body “ends with nuclear fuel”, and it is under the influence of gravitational forces shrinks, becoming a neutron star, or – one of the hypotheses -. a black hole

Experts also reminded that is released huge amounts of food during the process fusion. “All the heavy elements in the universe were formed by supernova explosions, – said the employee’s Ames Research Center in California, Steve Howell, participating in the telescope program” Kepler “-. For example, silver, nickel and copper in the world and even in our bodies were due to painful death of stars. ” “Life exists because supernovae”, – the expert added

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