The Milky Way's Most Recent Supernova That Nobody Saw

StartsWithABang writes: A little over 300 years ago, a supernova — a dying, ultramassive star — exploded, giving rise to such a luminous explosion that it might have shone as bright as our entire galaxy. And nobody on Earth saw it. Located in the plane of our Milky Way galaxy, the light was obscured, but thanks to a suite of great, space-based observatories (Hubble, Spitzer, and Chandra), we've been able to piece together exactly what occurred. Not only that, but observations of a light-echo, or reflected light off of the nearby gas, has allowed us to see the light from this explosion centuries later, and learn exactly how it happened.

Comments

Re:11,000 years ago, not 300

[Anonymous Coward]

Relatively speaking you're wrong, it happened 300yrs ago -- when the light hit earth.

Now, in absolutes; 11300yrs ago (note that 300 years ago the light hit Earth, so you have to add the years up!), a big explosion occurred and probably vaporized a few planets with species on it... So, PETA should be protesting the supernova these physicists are studying for the obliteration of several hundreds of millions of animals. Now way should these physicists be continued to misuse public funds to continue their research.

-The mouth maybe moving but there's no brain activity behind the words...

Re:too dim

[khallow]

If you read the story, you find that it wasn't too dim to see, there was just something in the way. And if you can see a supernova from the far side of Earth, you are way too close.

Re:11,000 years ago, not 300

[thegarbz]

To a relatively stationary you 11000 ly from the source, it was about 11000 years ago.
To the light emanating from that explosion that reached us (unnoticed), it was 300 years ago.

Time slows down when I read slashdot comments like this.