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An extremely luminous X-ray outburst at the birth of a supernova

Nature volume 453, pages 469–474 (2008)Cite this article

A Corrigendum to this article was published on 10 July 2008

Abstract

Massive stars end their short lives in spectacular explosions—supernovae—that synthesize new elements and drive galaxy evolution. Historically, supernovae were discovered mainly through their ‘delayed’ optical light (some days after the burst of neutrinos that marks the actual event), preventing observations in the first moments following the explosion. As a result, the progenitors of some supernovae and the events leading up to their violent demise remain intensely debated. Here we report the serendipitous discovery of a supernova at the time of the explosion, marked by an extremely luminous X-ray outburst. We attribute the outburst to the ‘break-out’ of the supernova shock wave from the progenitor star, and show that the inferred rate of such events agrees with that of all core-collapse supernovae. We predict that future wide-field X-ray surveys will catch each year hundreds of supernovae in the act of exploding.

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Figure 1: Discovery image and X-ray light curve of XRO 080109/SN 2008D.
Figure 2: Optical spectra of XRO 080109/SN 2008D, and model fit.
Figure 3: Optical and ultraviolet light curves of XRO 080109/SN 2008D, and model fit.
Figure 4: Radio light curves, spectra and image of XRO 080109/SN 2008D.
Figure 5: Volumetric rate of X-ray outbursts similar to XRO 080109.

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Acknowledgements

This Article is based in part on observations obtained at the Gemini Observatory through the Director’s Discretionary Time. Gemini is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under a cooperative agreement with the NSF on behalf of the Gemini partnership: the NSF (US), the STFC (UK), the NRC (Canada), CONICYT (Chile), the ARC (Australia), CNPq (Brazil) and SECYT (Argentina). The VLA is operated by NRAO, a facility of the NSF operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. Some of the data presented herein were obtained at the W. M. Keck Observatory, which is operated as a scientific partnership among the California Institute of Technology, the University of California and NASA. The Observatory was made possible by the financial support of the W. M. Keck Foundation. A.M.S. acknowledges support by NASA through a Hubble Fellowship.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University, Ivy Lane, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA,

    A. M. Soderberg, E. Berger & A. Burrows

  2. Carnegie Observatories, 813 Santa Barbara Street, Pasadena, California 91101, USA ,

    A. M. Soderberg & E. Berger

  3. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leicester, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK

    K. L. Page, A. P. Beardmore & P. T. O’Brien

  4. Mullard Space Science Laboratory, University College London, Holmbury St Mary, Dorking, Surrey RH5 6NT, UK ,

    P. Schady, M. J. Page & M. de Pasquale

  5. Physics and Astronomy Department, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire 03755, USA,

    J. Parrent

  6. Astronomy Department, University of Wisconsin, 475 North Charter Street, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA,

    D. Pooley

  7. Department of Astronomy, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China

    X.-Y. Wang

  8. Department of Astronomy, 105-24, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA,

    E. O. Ofek, A. Rau, J. D. Simon, M. Kasliwal & S. R. Kulkarni

  9. Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA,

    A. Cucchiara, P. Brown, D. N. Burrows, D. B. Fox, P. Mészáros & J. Racusin

  10. Faculty of Physics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel

    E. Waxman & A. Gal-Yam

  11. Radio Astronomy Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA ,

    D. C.-J. Bock

  12. Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, 933 North Cherry Avenue, Tucson, Arizona 85721, USA ,

    P. A. Milne

  13. Department of Astronomy, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712, USA,

    J. C. Barentine

  14. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771, USA ,

    S. D. Barthelmy

  15. Department of Physics and Astronomy, York University, Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3, Canada,

    M. F. Bietenholz

  16. Hartebeestehoek Radio Observatory, PO Box 443, Krugersdorp, 1740, South Africa ,

    M. F. Bietenholz

  17. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina 29634, USA,

    G. Byrngelson

  18. Space Radiation Laboratory, 220-47, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA ,

    S. B. Cenko

  19. Department of Astronomy, University of Virginia, PO Box 400325, Charlottesville, Virginia 22904, USA,

    P. Chandra

  20. CRESST and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771, USA ,

    J. R. Cummings, N. Gehrels, S. Immler & H. A. Krimm

  21. Institute of Astronomy and Department of Physics, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan

    A. K. H. Kong

  22. Universities Space Research Association, 10211 Wincopin Circle, #500, Columbia, Maryland 21044, USA ,

    H. A. Krimm

  23. School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK

    T. J. Maccarone

  24. Theoretical Astrophysics, 130-33, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA ,

    E. Nakar

  25. Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik, D-85748 Garching, Germany

    R. A. Overzier

  26. University of Amsterdam, Astronomical Institute ‘Anton Pannekoek’, Kruislaan 403, 1098SJ, Amsterdam, The Netherlands ,

    N. Rea

  27. Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Chicago, 5640 S. Ellis Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA,

    D. G. York

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  1. A. M. Soderberg
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to A. M. Soderberg.

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The file contains Supplementary Data, Supplementary Tables 1-6 and Supplementary Figures 1-9 with Legends. (PDF 1170 kb)

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Soderberg, A., Berger, E., Page, K. et al. An extremely luminous X-ray outburst at the birth of a supernova. Nature 453, 469–474 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature06997

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