Md. stargazer's discovery keeps on giving

David Dishneau, Associated Press
In a Nov. 16, 2010 photo, amateur astronomer Gus Johnson, 72, checks out one of his telescopes at Deep Creek Lake State Park near Swanton, Md. Harvard researchers announced on Monday, Nov. 15, 2010 that a supernova Johnson discovered in 1979 is now believed to be the rarely observed birth of a black hole. Scientists at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics publicly announced the finding Monday.


By David Dishneau, Associated Press

SWANTON, Md. — The star that exploded into a supernova first spotted by amateur astronomer Gus Johnson more than 30 years ago may have caused a baby black hole in its wake.

Johnson, 72, a state park worker from Swanton in western Maryland, said he was amazed when NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory Center in Cambridge, Mass., called in early November to say that researchers believe the exploding star he found with his home telescope in 1979 marked the birth of a black hole 50 million light-years away —the nearest such observation yet made.

It was the third time that Johnson's star, SN1979C, has made news. First came the discovery. A year later, radio astronomers found that it had begun emitting radio waves, advancing the theory that exploded stars evolve into pulsars. Now, there's evidence it may be a baby black hole.

By continuing to follow the black hole, future astronomers will learn just how much material is left over from the star's explosion, said Dan Patnaude of Harvard, a co-author of a new paper in the journal New Astronomy. This black hole is about five times more massive than our sun, and the star that exploded was maybe 20 times bigger than our sun.

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