Gaia mission discovers its first supernova

The observation of a sudden rise in the galaxy's brightness —a factor 6— between two Gaia observations separated by one month triggered alarms.
The observation of a sudden rise in the galaxy's brightness —a factor 6— between two Gaia observations separated by one month triggered alarms.
Research
(12/09/2014)

The satellite Gaia, which was successfully launched on 19 December 2013, has discovered its first supernova by means of the observations of an astronomical object carried out on 30 August. Spectrophotometric observations of the satellite and follow-up observations from the ground confirmed that it is an explosion of a supernova type Ia that took place 500 million light-years away.

The observation of a sudden rise in the galaxy's brightness —a factor 6— between two Gaia observations separated by one month triggered alarms.
The observation of a sudden rise in the galaxy's brightness —a factor 6— between two Gaia observations separated by one month triggered alarms.
Research
12/09/2014

The satellite Gaia, which was successfully launched on 19 December 2013, has discovered its first supernova by means of the observations of an astronomical object carried out on 30 August. Spectrophotometric observations of the satellite and follow-up observations from the ground confirmed that it is an explosion of a supernova type Ia that took place 500 million light-years away.

The observation of a sudden rise in the galaxy's brightness —a factor 6— between two Gaia observations separated by one month triggered alarms: “We immediately thought it might be a supernova, but needed more clues to back up our claim”, explains Łukasz Wyrzykowski, expert from the Warsaw University Astronomical Observatory (Poland).

To confirm the nature of this supernova, the astronomers complemented the Gaia data with more observations from the ground, using the Isaac Newton Telescope (INT) and the robotic Liverpool Telescope on La Palma, in the Canary Islands, Spain. Nadejda Blagorodnova, researcher at the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge, says that “in the spectrum of this source, we could already see the presence of iron and other elements that are known to be found in supernovas”.

“This is the first supernova in what we expect to be a long series of discoveries with Gaia mission”, says Timo Prusti, scientist who participates in the project that constitutes the maximum exponent of a technology that places Europe in a leading position in the field of astrometry.

Gaia mission will contribute to know the history of the Milky Way, from its origin to its current state, by measuring positions, distances and movements of one billion stars and the study of its physical properties, like age and chemical composition. A team of scientists and engineers from the University of Barcelona participate in the mission; they are members of the Institute of Sciences of the Cosmos (ICCUB) and the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia.

 

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