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New Supernova Seen In Nearby Galaxy M82
The Bad Astronomer writes "A new and potentially bright supernova was just discovered in the nearby galaxy M82. This is a Type Ia supernova, the catastrophic explosion of a white dwarf. It appears to be on the rise, and may have been caught as much as two weeks before peak brightness. It's currently already brighter than magnitude 12, and may get to mag 8, easy to see in small telescopes. The galaxy is less than 12 million light years away, so this may become one of the best-studied supernovae in recent times. Type Ia supernovae are used to measure dark energy, so seeing one nearby is a huge boon to astronomy."
> I'm always stressing to people at our star parties the light you see is history.
I'm surprised they still invite you. They probably already know.
THE question I am sure many will think about is how many neutrinos will be detected.
For supernova 1987a at 168'000 light years 24 neutrinos have been detected.
At 12 mega light years M82 is 71 times further, which dilutes the neutrinos by a factor ~5000.
So the answer is 0 neutrino if the detectors were the same as in 1987.
I doubt that the present detectors have improved by a factor 1000 in the meanwhile,
but I would be glad to be disproved.