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Supernova 2011b Gradually Fading
An anonymous reader writes "The recent stellar explosion known as 'supernova 2011b' is gradually fading after outshining its host galaxy for over a month. The explosion first flared up in early January, and peaked at magnitude 12.9, putting it within the reach of many amateur telescopes. The host galaxy, NGC 2655, lies 64 million light years away, meaning that the star exploded while the dinosaurs still roamed the planet. My own sketches are available at gkastro.tk/."
Emeril sure gets around.
Home of The Suki Series
Pics or it didn't explode....
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
*
I thought the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago?
That means they were already dead for a million years, 64 million years ago.
Putting moderation advice in your
A supernova explodes. Slashdot reports 64 million years later.
If enithin kan gow rong it whil. (Murfey)
http://www.novaresource.org/
Home of The Suki Series
When an event is X light-years away, and we're just seeing it now, people speak of the event "having happened" X years ago, on the grounds that it takes X years for light to travel that distance. But how meaningful is it to think of the faraway event as being exactly concurrent with an earthly event X years ago? Light from faraway shows events from when the universe was/is in a less advanced state, so we may try to think of that as the "past". But in a way, for us, those far away events are really "now". There isn't a previous time at which we could witness them without time travel, not even in principle. Furthermore, the thought that "the event really occurred X years ago" seems to assume a universal standard of time, independent of the location and velocity of the observer, by which far apart events can be ordered. But time is not like that is it?
If only I would of found out about the supernova back in January! Never seen one before and it is possible that there won't be another within my lifetime.
Don't worry. If you accept supernovas like this one, that's in a different galaxy than ours, there are plenty of them somewhere in the universe every year. It's only if you want one in our galaxy that you have to wait, since the frequency is on the order of one per century.
There was one in the Large Magellanic Cloud back in 1987, easily visible to the naked eye (if you were in the southern hemisphere).
Actually, it's getting to be time we had one in our galaxy. But unfortunately, they don't seem to be scheduled anywhere that we can easily read. The schedule has probably been on file at our local planning department in Alpha Centauri for 50 of our years, but we can't be bothered to make the short trip to check it out. So we'll just have to keep looking up at the night sky until something new appears there.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
It's not that bright, you need a good telescope to see it. Not that rare either, one hits 12th magnitude once or twice a year. It looks like just another very dim star in the scope. The difference between January and now isn't much at all.
Now, if one were to pop off in our part of the galaxy it would be news. Astronomers have been waiting for one visible to the naked eye for about 400 years.
Here's a list of current supernovae:
http://www.rochesterastronomy.org/supernova.html
Can't you just get the software they use on CSI Miami and click "enhance" like a million times.
Translation, it is photographically within the reach of telescopes costing only a couple of thousand dollars, and from a good dark sky location visually within the reach of telescopes costing about as much as a typical reasonably nice used car (that is as a very dim pinpoint). The number of amateur telescopes in the world that can provide a decent view of this object is probably fewer than the number of people that will end up posting in this message thread.