Mystery of an Ancient Super Nova Solved

Bob the Super Hamste writes "The BBC is reporting that the mystery of a supernova seen almost 2000 years ago has been solved. The supernova RCW 86 was observed in 185AD by Chinese astronomers and was visible for eight months. Recently scientists have wondered how the supernova grew so big. By combining data from the Chandra X-ray telescope and the XMM-Newton Observatory with recent images from NASA's Spitzer and Wide-field Infrared Survey telescopes, scientists have figured out that the supernova expanded into a relatively empty bubble of space. These empty bubbles of space are typically associated with a core collapse supernova, but the core remnant is high in iron, which instead is associated with a type 1A supernova. The findings are published in The Astrophysical Journal."

Comments

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[RazzleFrog]

I am as anti-religion as they come and I think the CE/BCE vs AD/BC thing is ridiculous and petty. If you aren't going to actually change the dates they represent there is no point in changing the letters. It's not like most people even know what AD stands for anymore than they know what AM and PM stand for. There are far more important battles to fight than this one.

Re:The Star

[catmistake]

Nope, it is a star. The mythology behind the birth of Christ is far older than Christianity, as Horus, Krishna, and many others, all have the same basic birth/martre story. The star is Sirius. The "Three Kings" are the prominent stars in Orion's Belt. On December 25th, the Three Kings (stars) "follow" Sirius... they always line up, but on Dec. 25th, they point at the spot where the Sun rises. Looks like all these religions that have the same outline of a mythology all have a common source in some unknown early agrarian society. I'm not sure what problem these BCE/CE secularists have with agriculture... it is a calendar, after all, and what better way to build a calendar than by using the clockwork of the cosmos to tell us when to plant and harvest?

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[Artifakt]

July and August are not exceptions - They were named after Julius and Augustus as part of ceremonially making those Caesers gods after their deaths.
Squeezing them in moved the month numbered seven (September) to the ninth slot, October to tenth and so on.

There were some people who got as far as officially changing the week and month so that there were no ancient religious mentions involved. For example, they made the name of the hottest month Thermidore so as to give it a quite rational association and avoid naming months after deified Roman emperors in their new calender. This didn't stick, because they a. also instituted what was called 'The Reign of Terror", b. died violently within weeks of tampering with the calender, and c. went down in history as mostly first class jerks.