The first time the meteor was shot

Astronomers yesterday were delighted to announce that they had for the first time captured the scene of a shooting star exploding. That's why they can now learn how to observe other meteor explosions.

Thanks to luck, astronomers have seized a supernova explosion while observing another area in a galaxy galaxy far away from Earth. They transferred many types of telescopes in the right direction.

'For years, we dreamed of observing stellar phenomena,' said Alicia Soderberg of Princeton University, New Jersey, USA. She is the leader of an international team of astronomers observing and studying the death of the 2008D meteor in the galaxy NGC 2770, 88 million light-years from Earth.

'On January 9, we were in the right position, at the right time, with the right telescope, and we witnessed a historic event,' she said.

Meteor is a dying star, but much larger than the sun of the Earth. First it will explode out, then shrink itself into a condensed and cold sphere. Sometimes it can become a black hole.

Summary of images observed in the explosion.(Photo: Reuters)

In fact, astronomers in Mrs. Soderberg's group are observing the event that happened 88 million years ago, but with time in Earth, they are just happening and astronomers may be interested. close to that shooting star as if they were exploding.

'Using the strongest X-ray, radio and optical telescopes on the ground and in the universe, we were able to observe the process of the explosion from the beginning,' Edo Berger, co. Soderberg's team said. 'It was finally possible to confirm the X-ray explosion that marked the' birth 'of the meteor'.

When Soderberg and her colleagues were doing a periodic observation of the star NGC 2770 with X-ray telescope on NASA's Swift satellite, they saw a bright beam of X-rays emanating from a band of NGC 2770.

Immediately 38 members of her international science group used all telescopes on the ground and in space to observe. They hope to gather information to help astronomers observe other meteorites faster.

'Future astronomical devices will allow us to solve the mystery of meteor explosions,' Soderberg said.