Slashdot Mirror
Brightest Supernova Discovered
Maggie McKee writes "Astronomers have spotted the brightest supernova ever seen — it is intrinsically two to three times brighter than any previously recorded. It has many characteristics of a type Ia explosion, but has hydrogen in its spectrum, unlike other type Ia's. That suggests that this supernova resulted from the collision of two stars — most likely a white dwarf and a red giant — rather than from an exploding white dwarf. If so, it might affect the interpretation of previous cosmological studies that depend on type Ia 'standard candle' observations, like dark energy. But other astronomers say merger-triggered explosions are probably rare and therefore won't throw a wrench in the works."
I don't know if you're being serious or not, but I'll answer anyway. Supernovae are transient objects: they show up suddenly and are very bright, growing to their maximum brightness within the first week. They then taper off and disappear in a few months. Astronomers will take a picture of a supernova every night and then graph its (apparent) birghtness as a function of time. This light curve is most useful if there's data from when the supernova is at its brightest, which is why it's best to catch supernovae early. You can then classify supernovae according to its light curve and spectrum, and they usually fall into several predictible camps (Type Ia, Ib, Ic, II,...).
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
OK, so this is calling into question one of the "standard candles" of astronomy and cosmology. But I'm curious exactly how? There's a fairly simple formula that relates absolute magnitude, relative magnitude, and distance. If you know any two, you can calculate the third. The whole concept of standard candles is that there are some events for which we know the absolute magnitude. This article is saying this is one of the standard candle events, but much brighter than ever before. The big question for me is, how do they know it's not just closer than ever before? My understanding is that the standard candle equations are the only way to determine distance at these ranges.
Pound! Bang! Bin! Bash! is this a shell script or a Batman comic?
Why would you bother, though? You won't get heard for millions of years.
you don't do this because you expect to be heard. Remember, the universe that this happens in is one where life is so incredibly rare that you searched your entire galaxy and didn't find any (we're talking a class III civilization here). So, on the off chance that there is life in another galaxy you announce your existance.
You'll never hear a reply - but if you don't do it, they will never hear YOU. On the other hand, if everyone follows my logic, then everyone will announce and you will hear from every civilization. And "hearing" from them probably means getting their version of the encyclopedia galactica. Everybody transmits everything they know.
What more do you want, a conversation? If you transmit your entire body of knowledge and all your history and all your culture, what more is there to talk about anyway? What do you think, you're going to get on the live and go: "a/s/l????"
Youre way of thinking, when you say, "why bother" is tragedy of the commons thinking. You don't want to take any action unless you personally get a return on that action. That's very selfish. If everyone else thinks unselfishly, then everyone will get everyone else's encyclopedia galactica.