Possible Supernova In Nearby Spiral Galaxy

New submitter Zburatorul writes "In an electronic telegram to the IAU, an Italian astronomer reports his discovery of a possible supernova (magnitude R = 15) near spiral galaxy M95 on images taken March 16th. Many more independent and confirming observations are trickling in. The Bad Astronomer, Phil Plait, has a more layman-friendly article about it. The bad news: it won't be visible with the naked eye. The good news: it's not going to kill us."

Comments

I've got some bad news and some good news.

[Anonymous Coward]

The bad news: It won't be visible to the naked eye.

Bummer man! Bummer!

The good news: It's not going to kill us.

Well THAT sucks!

Wait, what?

Re:I've got some bad news and some good news.

[davester666]

RUNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Really, it's gonna get you if you don't!

Re:I've got some bad news and some good news.

[AmigaMMC]

Yeah! Wait until December 21st 2012 and you'll see if it won't kill us.

Probably not a supernova.

[Anonymous Coward]

More likely cause is that they got their version of the Large Hadron Collider up to full power.

Bad news for the dinosaurs

[ehiris]

Since it occurred 40 million years ago, it must have killed off the dinosaurs.

Re:Bad news for the dinosaurs

[SnarfQuest]

So much for the Pak's home wold.

Re:Bad news for the dinosaurs

[dubyrunning]

Since it occurred 40 million years ago, it must have killed off the dinosaurs.

If it's taken the light from the supernova 40 million years to reach Earth, then wouldn't it take any deadly radiation at least that long to reach us? The dinosaurs missed out on any possible threat from this explosion by about 40 million years.

Re:Bad news for the dinosaurs

[Anonymous Coward]

The dinosaurs missed out on any possible threat from this explosion by about 40 million years.

Hear that WOOOOSH? That's the joke flying overhead 25.5 million years too late.

Re:Bad news for the dinosaurs

[Black Parrot]

The dinosaurs missed out on any possible threat from this explosion by about 40 million years.

Hear that WOOOOSH? That's the joke flying overhead 25.5 million years too late.

Yes, but we didn't have Slashdot 25.5 million years ago, so the tardiness is excusable.

SN2012aw is ready for its closeup

[The Bad Astronomer]

I've received some nice pictures of the galaxy+SN which I just posted to the blog as well. Looks like this is a Type II, the explosion of a massive star at the end of its short life.

Re:SN2012aw is ready for its closeup

[interval1066]

That is very cool. Thanks for that.

Re:SN2012aw is ready for its closeup

[niftydude]

Hey Bad Astronomer, do you think this has a chance of being a big enough explosion for the LIGA gravity wave interferometers to detect?

Re:SN2012aw is ready for its closeup

[Black Parrot]

I've received some nice pictures of the galaxy+SN which I just posted to the blog as well. Looks like this is a Type II, the explosion of a massive star at the end of its short life.

Is Slashdot the official discussion board for your site? Not that I mind the stories, but these days every time I see something interesting on your site, I say to myself "that will be on Slashdot tomorrow".

Re:SN2012aw is ready for its closeup

[Ruie]

No, as we don't know exactly what the gravitational signal from a supernova will be and as the energy released as gravitational waves is estimated to be relatively weak, it is highly unlikely that modern interferometers will detect a supernova outside of our galaxy.

Also, LIGO and Virgo interferometers are presently undergoing an upgrade to increase sensitivity, GEO600 is the only sensitive instrument in operation, just in case we have a supernova close by or an inspiral not too far away (but not too close either ;) ).

How very advanced of them!

[schmidt349]

An "electronic telegram?" Great, let's head up to Mauna Kea and confirm their results. I propose we travel by horseless sleigh.

Re:How very advanced of them!

[Anonymous Coward]

I prefer Serfless rickshaw.

Re:How very advanced of them!

[X0563511]

Indeed. Hell it's not even a radiotelegram, which would at least be interesting.

Only a matter of time...

[Anonymous Coward]

... before one goes off close enough for us to get decent optical imagery of it as it obliterates other objects in its path...

Actually, does anyone know if that type of resolution is possible optically with the hardware we have up there (and taking into consideration the contrast in light necessary to resolve the different objects)?

I'll second that

[Okian Warrior]

Very cool. Thanks for the link.

Relativity

[Spigot the Bear]

This has always hurt my brain: from our frame of reference, if this supernova is ~40Mly away, is it happening now or did it happen 40M years ago?

Re:Relativity

[Kreigaffe]

Huh?

It happened ~40 million years ago. We're just now seeing it.

Not a hard concept, not even relativity really. Go outside, see a gunshot from a great distance (or, well, anything else loud). You'll see it before you hear it. At such relatively short distances, light takes very little time to reach your eye, but sound takes much longer. Now increase the distance, and light takes a long time too. Bam.

Re:Relativity

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember, according to relativity there is no simultaneous "now", and hence no reality of something having happened at a great distance. We are perceiving it now, but that's not because it "happened" before. It is only that we're perceiving it now.

The whole concept is much, much less simple than people make it out to be.

Re:Relativity

[Anonymous Coward]

But you have overcomplicated the hell out of it and made zero sense in doing so. We know the distance, we know c, and we know gamma. We know exactly when it happened. And that it did happen. Obviously someone read up enough to be dangerous. Take a few classes in modern physics, but what do I know, I'm just a mere astrophysicist.

Re:Relativity

[Black Parrot]

Huh?

It happened ~40 million years ago. We're just now seeing it.

Not a hard concept, not even relativity really. Go outside, see a gunshot from a great distance (or, well, anything else loud). You'll see it before you hear it. At such relatively short distances, light takes very little time to reach your eye, but sound takes much longer. Now increase the distance, and light takes a long time too. Bam.

So, when will we be hearing the bang from the supernova?

Re:Relativity

[pedestrian crossing]

When you scale up to large distances and high relative velocities, the concept of simultaneity goes out the window.

Our velocity is relative to M95 is a pretty small percentage of the speed of light, so in our inertial frame, it appears as if it happened ~40million (actually closer to 32 million) years ago.

If our relative velocity were much higher, it would appear to have happened either either more recently or longer ago (depending if we were moving toward or away from M95.)

In this case (talking only about observers on earth), the gunshot analogy is close enough. But it isn't universally applicable.

Re:Relativity

[black3d]

That's not true, really. There is a simultaneous "now" in relativity. It's merely that the information takes time to propagate. If you wanted to get really pedantic about it, our brain takes several microseconds for stimulus to reach our cognitive processing centres, so in fact we never experience "now", we are always experiencing events that happened in the past. But like the information transfer delay of space, that doesn't mean "now" isn't occuring simultaneously.

Events are occurring simultaneously here and 40 million light years away. The fact the information of those events will take at least 40 million years to reach the opposite location, doesn't have any effect on the reality of the events. Contrary to your statement, we are percieving it now ONLY because it happened before. But everything that we percieve has happened in the past. Even those that occur in front of our face. The concept *is* simple.

Re:Relativity

[Anonymous Coward]

would this be a good time for the usual "in space nobody hears you scream" meme?

Re:Relativity

[stevelinton]

No there really is no absolute present in relativity. We can calculate that this supernova occurred 40 million years ago, simultaneously with some event on Earth, but an alien whose spaceship was flying past Earth 40 million years ago at near light speed and who later sees the light from the supernova would not calculate that those two events were simultaneous. Neither it, nor we, is wrong. Simultaneity depends on how you are moving.

What relativity does, indepdendently of how you are moving, is divide the universe into five parts:

* your past -- events from which you could have received a slower-than-light message by now
* your past light cone -- events from which a light-speed signal is just now arriving
* your future light cone -- events which might receive a light-speed signal if your send it now
* your future -- events which could receive a slower-than-light message from you
* the rest

No observer will disagree (except by mistake) about which of these parts any given event is in with respect to you.

The supernova is on our past light cone. In our stationary reference frame it's about 37 million years away, but again, a moving observer would come up with a different number.

Re:Relativity

[Ruie]

Your comment is only correct in empty vacuum ;)

However, in our universe Lorentz invariance is weakly broken. For example, one can pick a reference frame where CMB radiation does not have a dipole moment.

Re:Relativity

[reezle]

Thanks for that.
I disagreed with him, but couldn't think of an informational way to express that disagreement... You put it rather succinctly.

Re:Relativity

[damien_kane]

So, when will we be hearing the bang from the supernova?

That depends on what you go back in time and fill space with, through which the sounds created by the supernova can propagate

Re:Relativity

[Anonymous Coward]

What would we do without you... =/

why would we think it was going to kill us?

[Xtifr]

If Betelgeuse, very much in our galaxy, and quite visible to the naked eye even before it goes supernova, is no threat (and it's not, though it could go supernova any time in the next million years), why on Earth would we be worried about an explosion in another galaxy?

Supernova occur (and are observed) fairly regularly. The estimated rate of supernova production in a galaxy the size of the Milky Way is about one every 50 years. We know of millions of galaxies. It's always nice to catch one as it's occurring, especially one as close as this, but the summary is just ridiculous.

Re:why would we think it was going to kill us?

[Opyros]

From TFA (the Bad Astronomy post):

And as a final note for now: we're in no danger from this. I normally wouldn't bother writing that, but a lot of people seem jittery due to 1) the 2012 nonsense, b) the recent (coincidental) solar flares, and Î) the asteroids (DA14 and AG5) I wrote about last week. So to proclude any fear-mongering, I'll just say this supernova is something like 400 million trillion kilometers away, and probably won't even get bright enough to see in binoculars. I hope that helps assuage any fears.

Unfortunately, Slashdot refuses to display the lowercase gamma correctly, ruining Phil's joke.

Re:why would we think it was going to kill us?

[Black Parrot]

From TFA (the Bad Astronomy post):

And as a final note for now: we're in no danger from this. I normally wouldn't bother writing that, but a lot of people seem jittery due to 1) the 2012 nonsense, b) the recent (coincidental) solar flares, and Î) the asteroids (DA14 and AG5) I wrote about last week. So to proclude any fear-mongering, I'll just say this supernova is something like 400 million trillion kilometers away, and probably won't even get bright enough to see in binoculars. I hope that helps assuage any fears.

I doubt that his reassurances will actually make much difference, since anyone who knows what a kilometer is already knew that it's not a threat.

Re:why would we think it was going to kill us?

[Anonymous Coward]

kilometers are those things that kill you right? because it sort of sounds like kill...kill-ometers

i guess the mayan's were right!

Re:why would we think it was going to kill us?

[SecurityGuy]

You must be new here. This is the planet where primitive Mayans chip out calendars on stone and present day idiots believe the world is ending because the Mayan calendar is. Special idiots spend their life savings building bunkers to prepare for this predicted-by-primitives apocalypse.

If anything, you should be surprised people aren't cowering in their basements wrapped in tin foil.

Re:why would we think it was going to kill us?

[Chris Burke]

Of course not. Kilometers are what killbots use to determine if they've reached their pre-set kill limit.

Re:why would we think it was going to kill us?

[Chris Burke]

If Betelgeuse, very much in our galaxy, and quite visible to the naked eye even before it goes supernova, is no threat (and it's not, though it could go supernova any time in the next million years), why on Earth would we be worried about an explosion in another galaxy?

Well the first step is to not know anything of what you just said about Betelgeuse.

The second step is to not really understand what a "galaxy" is or how far away anything happening in another galaxy is.

The third step is to be easily panicked by anything that sounds remotely scary like "Mayans predict end of world in 2012!" and thus jump everytime anything happens in that year.

There are a lot of these people, and Phil Plait has on many occasions been asked -- and frequently tries on his own -- to calm peoples' irrational fears of space phenomenon. I'm not exactly sure how well it works. Stupid seems to be a growth industry.

Re:why would we think it was going to kill us?

[khallow]

If Betelgeuse, very much in our galaxy, and quite visible to the naked eye even before it goes supernova, is no threat (and it's not, though it could go supernova any time in the next million years)

We know this for somewhat different reasons. Betelguese won't be a threat because it's axis of rotation is not in line with Earth (and at that distance, is the only means for it to be of potential harm to Earth). The other supernova wouldn't be a threat whether or not its axis of rotation is lined up with Earth because of distance.

Re:why would we think it was going to kill us?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've always wondered about this, while Betelgeuse may not be a threat to us, do we have some idea has to how many *other* systems are "threatened" by it?

Re:why would we think it was going to kill us?

[Xtifr]

Well the first step is to not know anything of what you just said about Betelgeuse.

Sorry, I thought this was slashdot. We may not RTFA; we may not know how to pleasure a woman, or what a goverment does, but when it comes to computers or tech or Star Wars or Star Trek or anything to do with stars, really, I expect a level of knowledge second to none. If you really need to be told any of this stuff, I think you may be on the wrong site.

Re:why would we think it was going to kill us?

[Xtifr]

You must be new here.

Really. Four digits in my id, and you think I must be new here?

This is the planet where...

Oh, you mean here on Earth? But this wasn't just posted on Earth--it was posted on Slashdot. News for Nerds! When it comes to idiotic ignorance, we reserve that for: what women want, how governments and companies work, what a marketing department does, what "offsides" means, why anyone might think that software is patentable, why anyone would care about aesthetics or bathing, and similar questions.

When it comes to physics and astronomy and anything else that might have to do with SciFi, our knowledge is second to none. So why post all that stuff here? On Fox/MSNBC, sure. But why here?

Re:why would we think it was going to kill us?

[Chris Burke]

Sorry, I thought this was slashdot.

Yes, this is /., and on /. we make fun of people who are worried a supernova is going to kill us because the Mayans predicted the end of the world, especially in Bad Astronomer posts. Which is why that was added in the summary.

Re:why would we think it was going to kill us?

[SecurityGuy]

Obviously, "You must be new here." is a joke, though tbh I don't count digits before I reply. Old IDs aren't necessarily still owned by the original holder, not that that matters.

But yeah, I was merely taking a swipe at the nutty people out there who worry about nonsensical things, and saying that another instance of people worrying about nonsensical things is just par for the course.

It depends how you define 'nearby'

[Shag]

That's really, really nearby... if you define 'nearby' like the Nearby Supernova Factory I'm in - 400 million to 1 billion light years.

This one is only 15.4 million light years away. So close it could practically order pizza.

more likely the reapers exiting a mass relay

[DragonTHC]

They hit that galaxy first.

Neutrinos?

[grimJester]

Is any current neutrino detector sensitive enough to pick up a signal? 40 million light years should/could be enough to get a lower bound on the mass.

Re:Neutrinos?

[StupendousMan]

First, this is a type Ia supernova, which produces fewer neutrinos and a much smaller gravitational wave signal than a core-collapse supernova.

Second, any supernova in a galaxy beyond the Local Group (the Milky Way, the Andromeda Galaxy, and some smaller companions) is too far to produce enough neutrinos or gravitational waves to be detected by our current instruments.

Rats.

Re:Neutrinos?

[Anonymous Coward]

What makes you think it's type Ia? Most people seem to agree this is in fact a type II. It's in a spiral arm and got very bright very fast.

Re:Neutrinos?

[StupendousMan]

Oh, rats. I've been working on measurements of SN 2011fe for too long and I had "type Ia" on the brain. You're right, this is a type II. My bad.

It's still too far away to produce detectable gravitational waves or neutrinos, though.

Re:Neutrinos?

[Forbman]

Yet, I felt a disturbance in the Force. It was as if billions of souls were suddenly...illuminated.

In other news, that space station is now operational.

Zburatorul

[G3ckoG33k]

The name Zburatorul intrigued me, so I had to Google it for images and found some bird images and a image of a dragon which led me to a Romanian webpage written in French, http://www.produsin.ro/lingua/zburatorul-ou-son-mythe/. Since Google can translate it for me, here it it is:

Among the beliefs and superstitions Romanian there are many myths and legends that speak of the existence of some supernatural being, who have a positive or negative influence on human life.

This is also true of the myth of Zburatorul or Sburatorul, be considered an evil in all its representations, regardless of region of origin, whose origins are found in the celebration of fire and its symbolism.

Folk beliefs describe him as an evil spirit who loves to wander, from midnight until dawn, sneaking into the houses where there are virgin, pregnant women or widows, as a flame or a snake to torment.

In some areas there is the superstition that this spirit is sent by someone to torment and torture the pregnant woman until she will lose her baby. The only remedy to ward off possession of the supernatural being is by untying some incantations, delivered Tuesday and Friday, using pure water originated from a source and a mixture made of nine plants.

BalaurD'autres this myth as a young woman rejected by whom he fell in love and who has metamorphosed in the life beyond, in a demon who tortures any woman without protection, by possession.

The images we watch as a ghost, or a scaly monster and quite often as a winged devil that slides down the chimney and torment the woman until dawn, leaving traces on his body: one on his face deathly pale, dark circles around his eyes and a deep melancholy. If a woman dares to hide or run away, then the devil will take revenge on his family.

Anthropologists see him as a demigod, personifying the erotic and the initiatory path that the girl must travel to reach middle age, most often in dreams. Zburatoroaica is his female counterpart, which has the role to initiate young men in a dream.

Cool! Ain't it? Never heard of that one before. He would be an excellent character for Marvel, together with Deadpool, Thor, Avengers, The Winter Soldier, Venom, Jesus, Wolverine, X-Men, Spider-Man, Captain Britain, Iron Man and many more.

Re:Zburatorul

[Black Parrot]

Folk beliefs describe him as an evil spirit who loves to wander, from midnight until dawn, sneaking into the houses where there are virgin, pregnant women or widows, as a flame or a snake to torment.

That's hard to parse. I suspect he finds lots snakes to torment, but not any "virgin, pregnant women" or "widows, as a flame".

Re:Zburatorul

[Anonymous Coward]

Google Translate gave him that. Do I really need to translate the translation?

Folk beliefs describe him as an evil spirit who loves to wander, from midnight until dawn, sneaking into the houses where there are virgin, pregnant women or widows, as a flame or a snake to torment.

Urban legends describe him as an evil spirit who loves to wander from midnight until dawn, sneaking into houses where there are virgins, pregnant women, or widows. He torments them while in the shape of a flame or a snake.

Quantum Mechanics {Re:Relativity}

[Black Parrot]

This has always hurt my brain: from our frame of reference, if this supernova is ~40Mly away, is it happening now or did it happen 40M years ago?

Well, according to the most popular view of QM, a wave function doesn't collapse until an observation is made. So unless there are alien species that live closer to it and watch the skies, it has spent the last 40My in a superposition of "went nova" and "didn't go nova". So in some sense it "happened" just now.

Or maybe 40My into the future, since it will take that long for the fact that we have observed it to propagate back to the star.

Hope that makes you brain hurt less.

Re:Quantum Mechanics {Re:Relativity}

[dissy]

Well, according to the most popular view of QM, a wave function doesn't collapse until an observation is made. So unless there are alien species that live closer to it and watch the skies, it has spent the last 40My in a superposition of "went nova" and "didn't go nova". So in some sense it "happened" just now.

No not quite. The word is "measurement" not "observation".
Once the photon gets absorbed by Anything, it has been measured, or as you call it "observed". This can be a spec of dust floating in space, or a bit of rock or gas on a dead world. It could be next to anything that absorbs that photon to collapse its wave, and that something does not need to be alive or conscious or more than just a simple little atom of hydrogen.

Also with relativity you can not use "when something happens" alone as a metric. No such thing exists. The question is "when something happens, from what point of view"

From the stars point of view, yes it happened long ago and our part of the universe is just now being affected by it and seeing it.
From our point of view, the light just made it here, so it just happened.

Re:Quantum Mechanics {Re:Relativity}

[Chris Burke]

No not quite. The word is "measurement" not "observation".

Thank you! And the logic that goes "measurement -> observation -> observer" is basically a pun.

It's only "the most popular view of QM" for new-age bullshit peddlers who use this pun-based interpretation to suggest that maybe QM is what allows all their bullshit psychic powers and so forth to work. It is trying to take science and turn it back into superstitious magic.

Re:Quantum Mechanics {Re:Relativity}

[thrich81]

Let's take your hydrogen atom example above for simplicity -- does the photon "really" get absorbed by the H atom or do the photon and H atom exist in a quantum superposition of "photon got absorbed" and "photon didn't get absorbed" until some other "observer" comes along and decides the situation? So where do the superpositions end until you postulate a sentient observer and how do you define that? I don't know the answers.

Re:Quantum Mechanics {Re:Relativity}

[dissy]

In answer, there is nothing special about the atoms in your eyeball that are doing the absorbing of the photon.

Where a single hydrogen atom absorbing the photon simply goes into a higher energy state (aka, it gets warmer), the many many atoms in your eye that form a cone or rod will both get warmer as well as fire off an electrochemical signal.

The photon absorption happens a very very long time before that signal leaves your eye, let alone reaches your brain.
Our bodies chemical systems are pretty slow, but even the electrical systems have resistance and signal slower than the speed of light through the atmosphere.

QM states the wave form for that photon is collapsed the moment it gets absorbed by something.
Note that if the atom then proceeds to re-emit another photon, the process starts again. However that very act of absorption/reemitting is called a measurement. The photon affects the atom, even if it is nothing more than warming it up.

Consciousness does not even come into play on this scale. Nor is it a word used in the mathematics of QM.

Re:Quantum Mechanics {Re:Relativity}

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, when so much contradictory posts about basic relativity get +5 is when you know that slashdot is not longer a "news for nerds" site.

Re:Quantum Mechanics {Re:Relativity}

[thrich81]

We may have to just agree to disagree on this topic but here's another look at it -- Let's say the H atom (in ground state) and photon are in a perfectly reflecting box so that neither can get away or be absorbed by the box. Again for simplicity say that the photon has only enough energy to take the H atom to its first excited state. All that QM can tell us is that, if a measurement is made (by something other than the atom and photon), what the probability is that the H atom will be found in its first excited state with no free photon or that the H atom will be found in its ground state with a free photon present. QM cannot in principle tell us what the history of emission and re-emission of the photon was -- until the measurement is made the system is in a superposition of the states -- there is no history of separate states. The same logic applies to the photon and H atom in free space between us and the supernova -- until a measurement is made (by something else) the photon and H atom are a closed system in a superposition of states.

No detectable neutrinos :-(

[msevior]

Back of the envolope calculation follows:

Distance to SN1987a = 1.9x10^5 light years
Distance to M95 = 4x10^7 light years

Ratio of neutrino flux SN1987a / M95 = (1.9/400)^2 = 2.2x10^-5

Number of neutrinos detected at Kamiokanda from SN1987a = 10
Sensitivity of Super-Kamiokanda (Super-K) = 20x that of Kamiokanda

Expected number of nu's from M95 at Super-K = 20x10x2.2x10^-5 = 0.004 :-(

Supernova?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't get it. They always told me when a star went supernova that it would produce more light than all the other stars combined. How come we can't see it with the naked eye then? There also a report from a chinese dude in the 800's somewhere that said a light brighter than the sun shined for days and produced more light than the sun even during the day (now that's a supernova! :)).

Or is this one of those fake supernovas? People seem to use the term supernova for different things, some say only the largest stars go supernova whilst others say even our sun (which is relatively small) will go supernova (whilst it should only become a red dwarf which is, quite different to say the least).

Re:Supernova?

[schmidt349]

This supernova took place in the galaxy Messier 95, some thirty-odd million light years from the Earth. It can't be seen with the naked eye because M95 can't be seen with the naked eye. Its absolute magnitude is 13ish, meaning that in a suburban area with light pollution you're going to need a minimum of a 12" telescope to see it at all. My brother-in-law happens to have a 12" scope with good optics, and in our area of NorCal we were barely able to make it out as a tiny pinprick of light in a slightly larger but dimmer blob of light. But it was there.

In fact SN2012aw is extraordinarily bright, and shines quite nearly as brightly as the galactic core of M95. Were this star to have blown up in the stellar vicinity (~5000LY from Earth) you would definitely be able to see it with the naked eye.

Supernovaaaawahhh

[Cazekiel]

I remember when thunderf00t did a live supernova-showing from Pine Mountain in Oregon, freezing his balls off to let us see it happen. I'd just gotten into the main chatroom, sans the trolls we had to put up with in the general chat, hanging out with Dawkins and others who'd joined to watch while tf00t had serious technical difficulties... and juuust as he got everything sorted and started sending out the live-ish pics, my computer froze, leaving me to refresh, get sent back to the pit of voles-chat and miss everything. I cried.

What I wouldn't give to see a real, giant, ridiculously-scary-but-exhilarating, safe-distanced away supernova that makes midnight feel like noon.