Possible supernova in nearby galaxy

[Ron2K]

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.

Source

WiK1D, if you're reading this -- I know you seem to have a thing for astrophotography; mind getting us some pics? Apparently, this one should get bright enough to spot in small telescopes...

[Tribble]

Oooh how awesome - yes W1k1d - you need to show us

[WiK1d]

It will be tough to image this one as I don't have $1500 equipment. But I'll see if I can get a visual confirmation, which will still be tough from the city lights. I tried to find M95 and M96 the other night but the glow from nearby Mars along with the city lights washed them out completely. And mag 15 is very very dim. None the less, I'll give it a shot.

In other news, I did however manage to confirm a supernova that was found in Carina a couple of weeks ago

4 March 2012



6 March 2012



12 March 2012



I haven't followed up on it yet, but it should be much dimmer by now.

[Tribble]

Wow - thanks for showing us. Didn't know about it

[WiK1d]

Here are some images taken from an amateur in California pre and post Supernova

[Tribble]

That is beautiful

[StarPhoenix]

That is beautiful

....but unimaginably devastasting.

Has Eta Carinae shed its outer layers yet?

[WiK1d]

I'm not exactly sure what you're referring to SP.

[StarBound]

Wonder what would happen if our sun suddenly just died, not super nova'd, just poof, lights out. How long will it take for our tempratures to drop to 0 and below?

[Ron2K]

Wonder what would happen if our sun suddenly just died, not super nova'd, just poof, lights out. How long will it take for our tempratures to drop to 0 and below?

Here you go.

[StarBound]

Ok so turns into a brown dwarf and we still get a tan for a few million years. So what if our sun gets removed? How long till the earth cools down to below 0?

[RuadRauFlessa]

Zero what? 0 Celsius? I would imagine not very long. About 10 hours should do the trick.

[StarBound]

I think about those hot summer nights where you can't sleep because the temp won't drop below 30C and thats in the dark. So if the light at the heart of our solar system suddenly goes out then what would the net effect be. Trying to remember solar eclypse but I don't remember the temp going down when the lights go out.

[WiK1d]

Well my phone has got a widget that shows how the temperature fluctuates during the day. Yesterday it peaked at 28 degrees at 4pm, then it suddenly dropped to 20 degrees in the next 4 hours. It then slowly dropped to 18 degrees by 2am and then dropped to 15 degrees by 5am again. Then it starts rising rapidly. Yesterday the drop was slow due to the cloud cover, but usually it goes from ~30 to ~15 in about 9 hours before the sun comes up again. Considering the sun won't come up again in this situation, the temperature decrease will be more rapid, I'd say we'll cool down to 0 degrees in about 12-15 hours.

[KALSTER]

I'd say we'll cool down to 0 degrees in about 12-15 hours.

And then it would continue to plummet as most of the heat gets lost to space. We'd need to go underground, permanently and try and find a way to survive on geothermal energy. If the sun just disappeared though without any warning, we'd just all die in short order.

[RuadRauFlessa]

Hoth here we come

[StarPhoenix]

@Kalster

I'd be interested in knowing how the abrupt disappearance of about 2*10^30kg from this [no longer] solar system would affect said system, and what difference it would have made for Jupiter to have been just massive enough to ignite a fusion reaction at its core.

@Wikid: Eta Carinae - A binary star system in Carina between 7000 and 8000 l.y. away. The principla member of this system is a large star of about 100 solar masses-still not as awe-inspiring as VY Canis Majoris in Canis Major.

Now that would produce a spectacular explosion for any observers sufficiently far away to survive the Gamma and other lethal radiation.

[KALSTER]

@Kalster

I'd be interested in knowing how the abrupt disappearance of about 2*10^30kg from this [no longer] solar system would affect said system, and what difference it would have made for Jupiter to have been just massive enough to ignite a fusion reaction at its core.

Well, gravity is a bit weird. We are affected by the sun's gravity were it is at this instant relative to us, as opposed to where it was 8 minutes ago (light takes around 8 minutes to reach us. A change in gravity would take 8 minutes to affect us though, so for another 8 minutes after the sun disappeared, we would continue to merrily receive light from it and orbit normally a if it was still there. That doesn't make much intuitive sense, but relativity does explain it. After that 8 minutes, light and gravity from the sun would abruptly disappear and we would shoot out in a straight (more or less) line perpendicular to the orbital at that instant. We would experience quite a rough shake as well as all that lost tug suddenly released the tidal bulge due to the sun. Similar things would happen with the other planets. I am not sure if we would have escape velocity from the remaining resultant barycentre of the solar system, but I'd guess we would.

As far as I know, Jupiter has about 1% of the mass needed for enough pressure at its core to ignite a fusion reaction, so if Jupiter was a star, it would have to be 100x more massive. That would significantly change our orbital paths around the solar system and we would have orbited a barycentre quite a way above the surface of the sun. We would have had extra sunlight as well then.

[StarPhoenix]

I kinda expected gravity to take its time. Isn't the cosmic speed limit for the transmission of information in a vacuum just under 3x10^8m/s?

[Stuart]

If the sun just disappeared though without any warning, we'd just all die in short order.

And if it posted a warning on it's FB page first?

[RuadRauFlessa]

then you know it is just the sick humour of an Astro Physicist, seriously failing.

[KALSTER]

I kinda expected gravity to take its time. Isn't the cosmic speed limit for the transmission of information in a vacuum just under 3x10^8m/s?

Exactly.

And if it posted a warning on it's FB page first?

Then we'd have that much time to be afraid extra.

[StarPhoenix]

Kalster: Have you considered teaching Science as a career?


Remember this?

Some prime supernova material there...

Kalster, would now be a good time to introduce the Chandrasekhar Limit?

[KALSTER]

Kalster: Have you considered teaching Science as a career?

Haha, that's very flattering, but I would run out of patience in short order , plus it would require three or four years of studying for a degree. I am nothing but an enthusiastic layman.
Instead, I spend my time being perpetually exasperated at the astonishing ignorance mixed with unwarranted and unshakable confidence of all manner of pseudoscience proponents on science forums.

Kalster, would now be a good time to introduce the Chandrasekhar Limit

Might be, along with the Schwarzschild radius.

Remember this

Very cool.

[WiK1d]

@Wikid: Eta Carinae - A binary star system in Carina between 7000 and 8000 l.y. away. The principla member of this system is a large star of about 100 solar masses-still not as awe-inspiring as VY Canis Majoris in Canis Major.

Now that would produce a spectacular explosion for any observers sufficiently far away to survive the Gamma and other lethal radiation.

I know what Eta Carinae is, but you wrote "Has Eta Carinae shed its outer layers yet?", which to me means it's Supernova, which it isn't, hence my question.

Astronomers are actively seeking stars that could go boom at any moment close to home, and there are quite a few on the list already, Betelgeuse being one of them, which I was told, more than ten years ago, could go SN any day between tomorrow and the next million years. So the time frame is quite large.