Herschel Spectroscopy of Future Supernova 21
davecl writes "ESA's Herschel Space Telescope has released its first spectroscopic results. These include observations of VYCMa, a star 50 times as massive as the sun and soon to become a supernova, as well as a nearby galaxy, more distant colliding starburst galaxies and a comet in our own solar system. The spectra show more lines than have ever been seen in these objects in the far-infrared and will allow astronomers to work out the detailed chemistry and physics behind star and planet formation as well as the last stages of stellar evolution before VYCMa's eventual collapse into a supernova. More coverage is available at the Herschel Mission Blog, which I run."
Re:Is astronomy really science? (Score:3, Insightful)
Science is the ability to formulate hypothesis and test them against experiments or observations (or both). So yes, astrophysics is a science.
Another way of looking at it (Score:4, Insightful)
An experiment is a prediction of something whose result is not yet proven. Just as in, say, chemistry, you can make predictions and test them with an experiment, so for astronomy. You make a prediction about what will be observed under certain conditions. The experiment requires better telescopes to test, so 20 years later, when Hubble comes along, you test the predicted outcome, and possibly disprove the prediction. Or maybe you only need to make a new observation which no one has made yet to test your idea.
It may not be a classic mix-and-watch experiment, but it seems like one to me.
Just think about it.. (Score:3, Insightful)
FTFA, it says that the star in question is 4900 light years away. To really understand what that means- the image of the star as we see it today left from it close to 5000 years ago, when the career prospects for laying 50 ton stone blocks were quite high in the Nile delta. For all we know, it might have gone supernova already at any point within the last 5000 years, and if we could instantly teleport to its location now we may actually just see the white dwarf remnant. Which means what we're observing may well be what once was, and not what currently is.
Starlight is the closest we can get to time travel, in a way. To look at it another way, Betelgeuse is 640 light years away; if anyone could observe Earth from there now with telescopes (!!), they would see us as we were during the middle ages, with the Black Plague sweeping across Europe.