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Junior-Sized Supernova Discovered By New York Teen
Matt_dk writes "In November 2008, Caroline Moore, a 14-year-old student from upstate New York, discovered a supernova in a nearby galaxy, making her the youngest person ever to do so. Additional observations determined that the object, called SN 2008ha, is a new type of stellar explosion, 1000 times more powerful than a nova but 1000 times less powerful than a supernova. Astronomers say that it may be the weakest supernova ever seen."
It'll light up the night sky.
What actually happened is that the astronomers were told that a 14-year-old child found a supernova that they'd all missed, and they groaned "Oh, that's weak!"
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
It seems like this kid didn't have to worry about light pollution.
/ The Arrow
"How lovely you are. So lovely in my straightjacket..." - Nny
supernova:nova = 1000000:1
And things between wasn't discovered?
The universe is wonderful.
... was discovered by the weakest supernova discoverer to date.
Neat.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
She discovered it and they didn't even name it after her??? Sue, Caroline, sue!
This is actually the first observed instance of a new class of objects... planets destroyed by Darth Vader's Death Star.
âoeAny society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
The cool thing is that in astronomy, we're still miles from having full sky coverage 24/7. This means that even if you have a (relatively) small telescope, you can still see things the big ones can't just by looking somewhere no one else is at a particular time.
I wish they described how the discovered got funneled up to the supernova scientists on the paper published on it. She must have been with someone who really knew that the "new star" she saw there wasn't supposed to be there, and that person deserves some credit, too!
"Welcome to McUniverse, would you like to try a black hole sundae?"
"No thanks, could I just have a junior super nova salad, to go?"
"Would you like to biggie size that?"
"....."
Astronomers say that it may be the weakest supernova ever seen.
Or the strongest nova..
"If a normal supernova is a nuclear bomb, then SN 2008ha is a bunker buster..."
I find it kind of a sad statement on society that a scientist finds a comparison to weapons of war to be the best way to describe an event to people. It's a good analogy because it explains the situation well but it says a lot about society that that's the analogy-of-choice...
North Korea Conducts New Nuke Test
From TFA:The peculiar object effectively bridged the gap between a nova (a nuclear explosion on the surface of an old, compact star called a white dwarf) and a type Ia supernova (the destructive death of a white dwarf caused by a runaway nuclear reaction starting deep in the star). SN 2008ha likely was a failed supernova where the explosion was unable to destroy the entire star. âoeIf a normal supernova is a nuclear bomb, then SN 2008ha is a bunker buster,â said team leader Ryan Foley
Set your phasers on "funky"!
Pet Peeve Alert:
Weakest Supernova or STRONGEST NOVA?
I'm mean seriously, a star exploding is a star exploding. Mario or Super Mario. He's still a fat plumber who eats shrooms...
I bet if the highly paid scientists found it they'd be touting the "Strongest NOVA ever see discovered" where as some plucky kid finds it they're like "umm weakest Super nova ever...."
Word play is fun...
It is almost like asking "Is it an A- or a B+" or the musical types the whole sharp flat deal...
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
If it's not quite a supernova, but more than a regular nova, does that make it a sidekick?
While the article, and many commenters so far have remarked on the irony of the youngest amateur astronomer finding the smallest supernova, it's pretty remarkable that what she actually found was a completely new astronomical phenomenon.
From what I understand, the mechanisms behind novae and supernovae are pretty well understood. But this is something new altogether. According to the article, they're not even sure it's an actual supernova. Nobody has ever seen this exact behavior in a star before. We're going to learn a lot from this, and it would be pretty damn remarkable even if the discoverer hadn't been a 14 year old amateur.
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
With no clear boundary between nova and supernova, this could also be the strongest nova.
Just like Australia being the biggest island : if it were bigger, it would be a continent....
I hereby declare that I have the biggest weenie on earth. Anything bigger should be called a penis!
...for a girl.
discovered a supernova in a nearby galaxy, making her the youngest person ever to do so
She may be the youngest to find a supernova in another galaxy, but I'll do better yet by watching for the first supernova in our solar sytem. We'll see who's laughing then!
My webcomic
That's right. The strongest girl discovering my supernova. That would be the strongest supernova.
Also, please explain how using a telescope magically invalidates light pollution. If I follow your line of reasoning, I should be able to use a pair of binoculars to get a crystal clear view out of a dirty window.
You're right that the "bottom of a well" claim is bogus, but you miss the boat in this last paragraph.
A telescope collects more light than the naked eye, and it also magnifies the image of what you're seeing. If you're looking at an extended object -- a nebula, a planet, or a patch of light-polluted sky -- this magnification spreads the object's light over a wider area, making it dimmer. Stars, though, are still effectively point sources, so they just look brighter.
So, looking for stars in a light-polluted sky is easier with a telescope, because it makes the stars appear brighter relative to their background. With nebulae, comets, or other extended objects, especially where the object's apparent brightness doesn't exceed the sky's apparent brightness, the telescope doesn't help much at all.
As for the binoculars and the dirty window, well, the dirt would be out-of-focus for the binoculars, so they might help a little. Mostly, though, the analogy is a poor fit. Light pollution is effectively radiating from clear sky, not blocking light as smog or clouds would do.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Additional observations determined that the object, called SN 2008ha, is a new type of stellar explosion, 1000 times more powerful than a nova but 1000 times less powerful than a supernova.
Well, I'm glad to see celestial phenomena follow the metric system, at least. I propose we name this a kilonova and rename the supernova to a meganova.
Demanding constant attention will only lead to attention.
Aboveaveragenova. or Supernova-Sidekick.
it was a supernova exploding when she waslooking through her, undoubtly pink, telescope? Or was her next door neighbor, Mr. Reamus, 'exploding' near his bedroom window?
The Supernova Junior: now only $0.99 at Burger King
I think Taco Bell beat them to it - at least it felt like a supernova in my bowel the last time I ate a Taco Bell product. . .
What?
An f sharp is quite different from a g flat in function, and only sounds identical if your hearing is mediocre
So if I hear middle F# (369.99 Hz) and middle Gb (369.99 Hz) as the same note (when middle C=261.63Hz), my hearing is mediocre?
Wow, that's just... wow.
chemistry, physics, biochemistry, computer science, mathematics, etc.
you need to slave almost your whole life, be at the top of your mental game, have tons of education under your belt, and you need extremely expensive instruments (well, not math)
but to make an important contribution to astronomy, you just need to look up with a cheap introductory level hobbyist telescope available at walmart, and some passion
that's amazing
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Hearing that a 16 year old had found a supernova she pronounced "I could beat her".
I hate to break it to you, but Slashdot gets more and more average all the time.
"Teen diagnoses her own disease in science class":
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/06/11/teen.self.diagnosis/index.html
"For eight years, Jessica Terry suffered from stomach pain so horrible, it brought her to her knees. The pain, along with diarrhea, vomiting and fever, made her so sick, she lost weight and often had to miss school.
During a science class, Jessica Terry, 18, discovered a tell-tale granuloma in her own pathology slide.
Her doctors, no matter how hard they tried, couldn't figure out the cause of Jessica's abdominal distress.
Then one day in January, Terry, 18, figured it out on her own."
Imagine the chagrin the various medical experts experienced when she inadvertently disproved numerous experts who misdiagnosed her...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
I propose calling it a giganova.
sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
Your nova throws off light like a girl.
It's very difficult to see the New Moon (most of the illumination of the thing being from 'Earth Shine'), especially when there's any light pollution.
So, looking for stars in a light-polluted sky is easier with a telescope, because it makes the stars appear brighter relative to their background.
Is this a joke? Light pollution turns the sky an awful pink-ish gray from what would otherwise be black, zodiacal light notwithstanding. That being the case, how exactly would it be easier to see a point source of light against a lighter background versus a darker background? (The answer? It's not. In fact, astronomers often use the limiting magnitude of stars visible with the naked eye as a measure of light pollution. The more LP there is, the smaller number of stars you will be able to discern with the naked eye, even if you are dark adapted and standing at the bottom of a well.)
With nebulae, comets, or other extended objects, especially where the object's apparent brightness doesn't exceed the sky's apparent brightness, the telescope doesn't help much at all.
Ludicrous! This is clearly being spoken by a person who has never looked through a telescope in their entire life. The apparently brightness of *any* astronomical object, be it a galaxy such as M31, or a globular cluster like M13, is entirely a function of aperture when magnification is held constant. The views of the Orion Nebula through a 4 inch reflector at 100x will be eviscerated by the same 100x view through a 20 inch reflector. (And yes, I have looked through instruments of both size, though I own a 12 inch reflector personally.) For views of the planets we have enough brightness to work with that light pollution makes little difference, but for just about everything else, it can ruin the view. You can barely make out M81 and M82 here in suburbia, but 2 hours a way they jump out of the sky at you.
If you go to doctors to get healed, you obviously live in a reality distortion.
They are there to make money. If you are healthy, you will not come anymore, meaning they will not get any money.
That's just how the system works. You get money for threating people. But it stops when you heal them.
If you want real help, try an university clinic, where the geeks of the medical sector live, and they really gain respect from healing people.
And learn as much as you can yourself.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Narrowband filters can also significantly reduce the effects of light pollution.
Sounds to me like you've just given an excellent reason to move out of the society that you live in and into a more civilised one. Which would make you a pinko commie subversive fellow traveller. Probably gay too (amongst people who think that being a pinko commie subversive fellow traveller is a bad thing, many also think that being gay is a bad thing too, and so the irrelevant crime-by-association is alleged. I say this for parody.)
But seriously, by casting aspersions that the society that you live in is not the "best of all things in the best of all possible worlds", you do lay yourself open to charges of Panglossian unpatriotism. If that worries you.
BTW, it's "threatening", not "threating", assuming that you were trying to type in English. Oh, the mistakes I make trying to write in Russian ! Or Spanish.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Who are this girls parents? why did they allow her to run wild in a neighboring galaxy?
WHAT DOES THE SCOUTER SAY ABOUT HIS POWERLEVEL??????????? "1000 times more powerful than a nova but 1000 times less powerful than a supernova" ITS OVER... wait, what?
(Score:0, Offtopic)
So, looking for stars in a light-polluted sky is easier with a telescope, because it makes the stars appear brighter relative to their background.
Is this a joke? Light pollution turns the sky an awful pink-ish gray from what would otherwise be black, zodiacal light notwithstanding. That being the case, how exactly would it be easier to see a point source of light against a lighter background versus a darker background?
Looking for stars in a light-polluted sky is easier with a telescope than it is without a telescope, because the telescope increases the apparent brightness of the stars relative to the brightness of their background. I'm sorry that I wasn't repetitive enough to head off your rant. Looking for stars is easier in a non-light-polluted sky, of course, whether you're using a telescope or not.
With nebulae, comets, or other extended objects, especially where the object's apparent brightness doesn't exceed the sky's apparent brightness, the telescope doesn't help much at all.
Ludicrous! This is clearly being spoken by a person who has never looked through a telescope in their entire life.
Heh. There's quite a bit more to telescopes than just "looking through" one. But even if that's all you're doing, you're overlooking a few very important points.
The apparently brightness of *any* astronomical object, be it a galaxy such as M31, or a globular cluster like M13, is entirely a function of aperture when magnification is held constant. The views of the Orion Nebula through a 4 inch reflector at 100x will be eviscerated by the same 100x view through a 20 inch reflector. (And yes, I have looked through instruments of both size, though I own a 12 inch reflector personally.)
Congratulations. You're obviously quite proud. Now, let's compare notes for these scopes against a polluted sky.
Under a typically nasty suburban sky, light pollution might be something like 18 magnitudes per square arc-second. In other words, each square arc-second of sky sheds as much light on your eye as an 18th-magnitude star.
The four-inch scope will collect something like 200 times as much light as a fully-dilated eye (100mm objective vs. 7mm pupil). At 100x, it will then spread that light across an angular area 100^2 times as large. An extended object -- a nebula, a distant galaxy, the sky itself -- will appear "100 times as large", but 50 times (just under four magnitudes) dimmer than what the naked eye sees. But stars will still be pinpoints (assuming good optics), and they will appear 200 times (almost six magnitudes) brighter. Thus, the telescope makes it easier to see dim stars against a light-polluted sky.
With the 20-inch scope, you're collecting 25 times as much light as the 4-inch, 5000 times as much as the naked eye. Spread that over 10,000 times the area, and extended objects still appear slightly (less than one magnitude) dimmer than they do to the unaided eye, but stars are 5000 times (over 9 magnitudes) brighter.
No matter what size telescope you use, 100x magnification "stretches the contrast" between extended and pointlike objects by 10,000 times, or ten magnitudes. (Within limits -- for a scope smaller than two inches you'd be exceeding the resolution limit of the optics, and for a scope larger than about 24", the exit pupil would be too big to get all the light into your eye.)
Now, suppose you're looking for a faint nebula, comet, or other extended object. No matter how large your telescope, no matter the magnification, it's not going to change the contrast between that object and the background brightness of the sky. If the sky itself has a higher surface brightness than the object you're looking for, it's going to be really hard to spot that object, unless you can find filters that knock back the skyglow more than they darken your target.