The Cataclysmic Death of Stars
more slowly, and now it was finally outshining the afterglow. For the first time, astronomers had
seen a gamma-ray burst evolve into a supernova from the very beginning.
Eighteen days after the supernova flared into view, astronomers were still watching. Atop
Palomar Mountain in southern California, the observatory dome's twin shutters slid open under
patchy clouds, letting a sliver of night sky fall onto the caged mirror of the 200-inch (508-
centimeter) Hale Telescope. Caltech astronomer Avishay Gal-Yam had two hours before the
supernova would dip too low in the sky for the telescope to see it.
Still more luminous than a billion suns, the supernova outshone the combined light from all the
stars in its home galaxy, glowing white-hot from the radioactive decay of unstable nickel atoms
forged in the explosion. Gal-Yam pointed to a computer screen showing a squiggly line--the
glow broken down into its component colors, or wavelengths. Each dip in the line represented a
annaabi.ee 
