Any core-collapse supernova—the explosion of a massive star—is by nature powerful, destructive, and rare. The really dramatic supernovas have the extra effect of exploding in a non-spherical way, beaming a lot of their matter and energy along an axis. When Earth is aligned with those beams, we see the supernova as a gamma ray burst (GRB), the brightest of which can be seen from billions of light-years away. (As the name suggests, these events are exceptionally bright in gamma ray light. In fact, they were first discovered by spy satellites monitoring for illicit nuclear tests—which are also marked by heavy gamma ray emission.) Observations of a supernova remnant in our galaxy strongly hint both that it was a GRB, and that it harbors a black hole at its center. That would mean the supernova is the only known GRB in our galaxy, and its black hole is the youngest known—a wonderful double discovery.

While stars like our Sun go gently into that good night, stars more than 25 times more massive explode in violent supernovae. Since stars that big are rare, their explosions are too, so astronomers typically have to do forensic work on supernova remnants in our galaxy. One particular remnant is one the brightest X- and gamma-ray sources around, marking it as a relatively recent explosion. By studying the remnant, astronomers have determined it likely harbors the youngest black hole in the Milky Way, and the original explosion may have been extremely energetic. [Read more…]