OCT 4, 2004 - Three Space Bursts may just be giving you something astrologers of old could only dream of; namely, advance notice of supernova bursts. In brief, NASA's orbiting High-Energy Transient Explorer (HETE- 2)
satellite has dectected X-ray bursts emanating from different locations out in space on September 12, 16 and 24. (The latter burst was on the cusp between X-rays and gamma rays, actually.) Current astronomical thinking holds that these bursts presage their stellar sources going supernova ten to twenty days or so later - which, in the case of the earliest burst, means any day now. So watch the skies for some "guest stars" in the days and weeks ahead.
