Slashdot Log In
Youngest Galactic Supernova Found, But No Aliens
Posted by
timothy
on Wed May 14, 2008 02:01 PM
from the tax-paid-striptease-from-nasa dept.
from the tax-paid-striptease-from-nasa dept.
Simon Howes writes "After searching for decades, astronomers have found a supernova in our galaxy! So it wasn't little green men we were waiting for. It's located very near the center of the galaxy, about 28,000 light years away, and it's only at most about 140 years old. Quote from Bad Astronomy: 'If you're wondering what all the buzz has been about the past few days over a NASA discovery, then wait no longer. No, it's not aliens or an incoming asteroid. Instead, it's still very cool: astronomers have found the youngest supernova in the Milky Way.'" FiReaNGeL contributes a link to coverage on e! Science News; I think Wired's account of the super-hyped tele-press-conference is the funniest.
Related Stories
[+]
Supernova Birth Observed From Orbiting Telescope 94 comments
FiReaNGeL writes "Astronomers have seen the aftermath of spectacular stellar explosions known as supernovae before, but no one had witnessed a star dying in real time — until now. While looking at another object in the spiral galaxy NGC 2770, using NASA's orbiting Swift telescope, scientists detected an extremely luminous blast of X-rays released by a supernova explosion. They alerted 8 other telescopes to turn their eyes on this first-of-its-kind event. 'We were looking at another, older supernova in the galaxy, when the one now known as SN 2008D went off. We would have missed it if it weren't for Swift's real-time capabilities, wide field of view, and numerous instruments.'" Bad Astronomy has an excellent, well-illustrated story about the discovery as well. I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property contributes a link to the BBC's coverage, and adds a nugget gleaned from Ars Technica: "SN 2007uy's collapse caused an X-ray burst of about 10^39 joules, most likely due to the 'shock break out' when the energy of the core's collapse finally reached the neutron star's surface."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
140 Years old (Score:5, Funny)
Re:140 Years old (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:140 Years old (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
28140 years old (Score:3, Insightful)
The write-up says:
If we are observing it (the light, that left the start 28000 years ago) now, the start must be about 28140 years old...
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:zzzzzzzz... (Score:4, Funny)
No, no, everything exploded from Nothing. Get it right. Sheesh.</quote><br>Well first a daddy universe explodes into a momma universe and new life is formed. 9 billion years later that little universe thinks it is the center of everything.
Parent
Re:zzzzzzzz... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Doesn't make sense.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Either that or they made an error converting AD years to light years. I hear they have problems with conversions.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
This makes the original explosion the most recent supernova in the Galaxy, as measured in Earth's time-frame (referring to when events are observable at Earth).
Re:Doesn't make sense.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
But explaining that takes away from the humour in sayin
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Doesn't make sense.... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
distance vs age? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:distance vs age? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Blasphemer.
Well, it's 26,000 years old from our perspective -- but from it's perspective, it's only 140 years old from the perspective of the evidence. Remember, it's traveling at the speed of light, so time has stopped.
Or something like that, I didn't bother to RTFToR either.
Re:distance vs age? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:distance vs age? (Score:4, Interesting)
After years of crunching our most heavy quantum computers, we decoded;
"HELP. WE ARE THE LAST KNOWN SURVIVING SPECIES IN THIS UNIVERSE. HELP. THEY FINALLY HAVE CREATED WEAPONS OF MASS... - NO CARRIER.".
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Nothing travels faster than light. We won't know anything at all about this supernova for 28,860 years.
It's easy to detect things faster than TSOL (Score:3, Funny)
In our case, 28000 ly/200 smartass speed of light posts = 140 years ago.
The more posts we get, the later it happens. Pretty soon, NASA will be able to predict the future! (Don't ask me about the math in that)
FTA "As measured in Earth's time frame" (Score:5, Informative)
What that statement means is from the observational perspective of the earth. If it is a 1000 light years away, and we see the event here and now, then it occurred now "as measured in Earth's Time Frame" but actually from the distance, we know the event occurred a 1000 years ago.
Real issue here (Score:2)
My Favorite Part (Score:2)
How much does it suck to have to say that during the announcement of your career.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
rj
Not so overdue (Score:4, Interesting)
Disclosure: Dr. Reynolds was co-chair of my thesis committee, but I was doing computational astrophysics, not observational.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
composite image (Score:2, Interesting)
NASA Is Wrong - Crab Nebula Is "Younger" (Score:4, Informative)
Re:NASA Is Wrong - Crab Nebula Is "Younger" (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Seen age vs. "actual" age (Score:3, Interesting)
Mod parent +1 informative (Score:2)
Relativity of simultaneity (Score:4, Interesting)
I came in here to burn some mod points... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is seriously one of the stupidest discussions I've ever seen on
It's what I'd expect from a society where people prank call a scientific conference. Nice one, guys.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
me: Excuse me. Is you Large Hadron Collider running?
CERN: Why yes, it is.
me: Well, you better go catch it.
Educate me, please. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Dupe! (Score:5, Funny)
Natural philosophers studying the heavens have spotted a stellar nova some 7000 light leagues distance. The light from this exploding star emanated some 24000 years before the birth of Our Lord. This has caused some confusion among scholars, as this would require the star to have combusted some 20 millennia before the creation of the Universe. Philosophers are also unable to theorize what may have made the star explode, though one possibility is a build-up of gas deep within the star's anthracite core.
This is certainly the biggest bang since Mr. Wilkes' curtain call during "Our American Cousin".
What's the RDA for supernovae? (Score:2)
This makes it sound like the galaxy's going to suffer incontinence or flaking nebulae if it doesn't get enough supernovae.
(disclaimer: this is a joke, I know what he means. I shouldn't have to add this, but this is slashdot)
Thanks a lot... (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
You're missing the point. Obviously, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has a working Time Machine which they've been keeping secret - until now. (Someone's getting fired...!)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
They were looking for the most recent Visible super nova.
With in that context they are exactly right.
Re: (Score:2)
A supernova within about 100 light years or so of Earth would probably cause an extinction event at the same time it was detected. NASA's announcement would be very exciting indeed, except for the little detail that, there'd probably be no one around to give it.