Thanks to a fortunate observation with NASA's Swift satellite, astronomers, for the first time, have caught a normal supernova at the moment of its birth -- the first instant when an exploding star begins spewing its energy into space, Read more
It would have been good if they could have caught the light with a spectrum and analysed ever heavier elements suddenly appearing, including maybe some transuranic elements even though they would be quickly gone.
"A European-led team of astronomers are providing hints that a recent supernova may not be as normal as initially thought. Instead, the star that exploded is now understood to have collapsed into a black hole, producing a weak jet, typical of much more violent events, the so-called gamma-ray bursts. The object, SN 2008D, is thus probably among the weakest explosions that produce very fast moving jets. This discovery represents a crucial milestone in the understanding of the most violent phenomena observed in the Universe." Read more
Though there is a basic cause for large stars going supernova, there are a number of ways it can happen depending on the mass, surface shell of the star, magnetic fields and so on.
