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Youngest Galactic Supernova Found, But No Aliens
Simon Howes writes "After searching for decades, astronomers have found a supernova in our galaxy! So it wasn't little green men we were waiting for. It's located very near the center of the galaxy, about 28,000 light years away, and it's only at most about 140 years old. Quote from Bad Astronomy: 'If you're wondering what all the buzz has been about the past few days over a NASA discovery, then wait no longer. No, it's not aliens or an incoming asteroid. Instead, it's still very cool: astronomers have found the youngest supernova in the Milky Way.'" FiReaNGeL contributes a link to coverage on e! Science News; I think Wired's account of the super-hyped tele-press-conference is the funniest.
Younger than America, that's actually really impressive.
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
If it's 140 yrs old, then it can't be farther than 140 ly for us to know about it ??!!?
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
Wait -- if it is 28,000 light years away, but only 140 years old .... does that mean we won't see it for another 27,860 years? Or, did it actually occur 28,140 years ago and we could see it 140 years ago?
10b||~10b -- aah, what a question!
All you need to do is divide the light years away by the smarmy posts about the speed of light in /.
In our case, 28000 ly/200 smartass speed of light posts = 140 years ago.
The more posts we get, the later it happens. Pretty soon, NASA will be able to predict the future! (Don't ask me about the math in that)
That issue has been solved! Scientists recently found the missing link between inanimate, lifeless matter and the first primitive protozoa: an Anonymous Coward fossil.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
"The supernova explosion occurred about 140 years ago, making it the most recent supernova in the Milky Way as measured in Earth's time frame. Previously, the last known galactic supernova occurred around 1680, based on studying the expansion of its remnant Cassiopeia A."
What that statement means is from the observational perspective of the earth. If it is a 1000 light years away, and we see the event here and now, then it occurred now "as measured in Earth's Time Frame" but actually from the distance, we know the event occurred a 1000 years ago.
www.effectiveelectrons.com "chips that work" Analog, RF, Mixed Signal
Several different "experts" have predicted that the Milky Way should have at least one supernova every 100 years. Of course, the question has been why we hadn't seen one since 1604. I guess this ... ahem, sheds new light on the issue. As Dr. Reynolds puts it, there's too much interstellar 'gunk' out there.
Disclosure: Dr. Reynolds was co-chair of my thesis committee, but I was doing computational astrophysics, not observational.
NASA is wrong in saying this new supernova is the "youngest" - it is actually just the MOST RECENTLY OBSERVED. The Crab Nebula supernova has it beat as "youngest", exploding occuring only 6500 years ago (and observed less than 300 years ago, in 1731) instead of exploding 28,000 years ago (and observed in 2008).
People need to read about relativity of simultaneity before trying to be smart asses and making laymen comments about events at large distances.
And I'm posting because there is no "Moron" mod.
/. Every post is either repeating something from the article, making a pedantic loser comment on the "140 years" line, or explaining to the morons the whole concept of "Frame of Reference."
This is seriously one of the stupidest discussions I've ever seen on
It's what I'd expect from a society where people prank call a scientific conference. Nice one, guys.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Wake me when they've discovered how Everything evolved from Nothing.
No, no, everything exploded from Nothing. Get it right. Sheesh.</quote><br>Well first a daddy universe explodes into a momma universe and new life is formed. 9 billion years later that little universe thinks it is the center of everything.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
First posted August 1868:
Natural philosophers studying the heavens have spotted a stellar nova some 7000 light leagues distance. The light from this exploding star emanated some 24000 years before the birth of Our Lord. This has caused some confusion among scholars, as this would require the star to have combusted some 20 millennia before the creation of the Universe. Philosophers are also unable to theorize what may have made the star explode, though one possibility is a build-up of gas deep within the star's anthracite core.
This is certainly the biggest bang since Mr. Wilkes' curtain call during "Our American Cousin".
Les Miserables Volume 1 now up with my reading of
Now every time I read a /. headline, I'm going to be adding "But No Aliens" to it in my head. *sigh*