Bizarre 3-Year-Long Supernova Defies Our Understanding of How Stars Die

Supernova iPTF14hls was unremarkable when first detected by a partner telescope in San Diego on Sept. 22, 2014. The light spectrum was a textbook example of a Type II-P supernova, the most common type astronomers...

The observatory was in the middle of a 7.5-year collaborative survey, so Arcavi focused on more-promising objects. But in February, 2015... a student working for Arcavi that winter, noticed the object had become brighter over the past five months.

"He showed me the data," Arcavi said, "and he [asked], 'Is this normal?' and I said, 'Absolutely not. That is very strange. Supernovae don't do that,'" Arcavi said.

At first, Arcavi thought it might be a local star in our galaxy, which would appear brighter because it was closer, he said. Many stars are also known to have variable brightness. But the light signature revealed that the object was indeed located in a small, irregular galaxy about 500 million light-years from Earth.

... After 100 days, the supernova looked just 30 days old. Two years later, the supernova's spectrum still looked the way it would if the explosion were only 60 days old. The supernova recently emerged from behind Earth's sun, and Arcavi said it's still bright, after roughly three years. But at one one-hundredth of its peak brightness, the object appears to finally be fading out.

"Just to be clear, though, there is no existing model or theory that explains all of the observations we have," said Arcavi. The supernova may fade out; it may grow brighter, or it may suddenly disappear.

One reason for Arcavi's uncertainty is that a supernova was seen in the same location in 1954. This means that the event Acavi has been observing... may actually be 60 years running.

"Again... Science is infallible - until it’s not."

~~~~~~~~~~

That is one of the more dumb@$$3d statements I've encountered on FR -- and that is quite an achievement!

It so happens that tomorrow, I complete my 80th orbit around our local star -- and as a physical scientist, I will testify that NEVER have I encountered a genuine scientist who claimed that "Science is infallible".

Nothing pleases a scientist more than to develop a better experiment or better measurement or observation to supplant and improvethe current state of knowledge. In fact, that is precisely why we do what we do. And those of us who are also are believers in Divine Creation also rejoice each time a new discovery unveils a bit more of the majesty of our Creator's magnificent design.

Bottom line: your statement is that of an ignorant dogmatist. And it disrespects both our Creator -- and those who honestly strive to ever-better understand Him and his infinitely-elegant work of creation.

Congratulations! You've put yourself in the same mental subclass as the Gorebull Wahrumists -- who claim "the science is settled"! '-)

Have a blessed day!

“Again... Science is infallible - until it’s not.”

I am not to sure that the original poster was wrong.

When you have jacklegs like Sagan and Tyson, or, real scientist Eddington and even Einstein, saying that they are right because “Science!” without giving proof, it makes you wonder. I certainly get the feeling that Sagan felt and Tyson feels that Science is infallible.

(For clarity, Eddington was the guy who told Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (Chandra) that white dwarf stars couldn’t exist because he didn’t like the connotations of compressed matter. Einstein added the “cosmological constant” to General Relativity because he didn’t like the idea of an ever expanding Universe. Both ideas were wrong)

Dear FRiend in Texas,
Please forgive me for excluding the /s in my comment. I made the mistaken assumption that my sarcasm was evident without the redundancy of a sarcasm tag.

Forgive my continuing ignorance, but do scientists such as yourself acknowledge logic & reasoning? You managed to cram more Ad Hominem attacks into your post than I've encountered on FR - and that is quite an achievement considering I de-lurked here at FR a mere 19 days before you (I lived in NH at the time - so you can be sure that Drumbo knows Massholes).

Trollish personal attacks don't usually provoke a response from me, but I take considerable offense that you accuse my levity of disrespecting our Creator. That insult is intolerable as I said nothing about The Creator and again I point to the fallacy in your logic (e.g. an off-topic red herring). I admit that I disrespect the bumper crop of junk science "consensus" with it's long history of revisionism, but as a knuckle-dragging neanderthal (or is it Piltdown? -- I get those two mixed up), perhaps I should leave off comments on threads where big brains and and superior intellects take ignorant dogmatists such as myself to the woodshed of name-calling and insults.

When Stephen Hawking (whom afaik is a "genuine scientist") states with "100% certainty" that "God does not exist", I assume he is exercising his infallible elitist scientificness (after all, "100% certainty" doesn't leave much wiggle room, but I could be wrong as Mr. Hawking has been in the past when he reverses himself). The "Gorebull Wahrumists" of the settled science club you mentioned and the 40-year scientific consensus on Piltdown Man before it was found to be a hoax, were exactly the kind of junk science I was referring to in my cynical post. I sense we are on the same side, but you need to find a sense of humor. After accusing me of "disrespecting our Creator", wishing me "a blessed day" seems hypocritical, but of course ymmv.

I know that your post was supportive and appreciate your comment, as well as the other FRiends I tagged in my rant, and I apologize for going so far off-topic.

TXnMA lists ":-( Buttons" on his home page. Trollish behavior, especially personal attacks - is among mine, but I put my reactions in the simmer bin and often don't post them until I've had some time to cool off, if I elect to post them at all. My Internet troll-stomping days are far behind me. I try to give folks the benefit of a doubt, avoid confrontations and frankly, I find arguing with idiots to be a waste of time. TXnMA is obviously NOT an idiot and his knee-jerk reaction to a perceived attack on his profession is understandable. But, his lack of tact, self-control and logic reveals he is common-sense challenged. You cannot win people to your pov by demeaning them.

Full Disclosure: I work with PTSD and TBI veterans (as part of my own PTSS therapy) and have seen the results of such confrontations turn very bad, up-to and including violence and suicide. As a scientist, I'm sure TXnMA has encountered Newton's third law and should be prepared to have it bite him in the @$$ when he goes over-the-top.

I've mellowed with age, but once in a while, other-wise intelligent people offend my sense of courtesy and fairness. As a Christian for over 5 decades, I really try to turn the other cheek, but once in a while one must armor-up and stand your ground.

The straw-man rhetorical technique is the practice of refuting weaker arguments than your opponents actually offer. It is not a logical fallacy to disprove a weak argument. Rather, the fallacy lies in declaring one argument's conclusion to be wrong because of flaws in another argument.

One can set up a straw man in several different ways:

1. Present only a portion of your opponent's arguments (often a weak one), refute it, and pretend that you have refuted all of their arguments.

2. Present your opponent's argument in weakened form, refute it, and pretend that you have refuted the original.

3. Present a misrepresentation of your opponent's position, refute it, and pretend that you have refuted your opponent's actual position.

4. Present someone who defends a position poorly as the defender, refute their arguments, and pretend that you've refuted every argument for that position.

5. Invent a fictitious persona with actions or beliefs that are criticized, and pretend that that person represents a group that the speaker is critical of.

For example, one might argue that "Charles Darwin believed in Lamarckian inheritance of acquired characteristics, which has been discredited (by scientists). Therefore, Darwinian evolution by natural selection did not occur." This is a straw man fallacy because the Lamarckian ideas of inheritability of acquired characteristics aka "soft inheritance" were only a small part of Darwin's overall theory; the fact that he was wrong about them does not prove the theory as a whole to be false.

Rather than address my comment in a reasoned argument, it was bombarded with personal attacks, an assertion that he knows the mind of God and testimony that he's NEVER encountered a genuine scientist who claimed that "Science is infallible" - a text-book straw man. That I've never met in my profession a genuine clown without a sense of humor does nothing to prove they do not exist.

To get back on topic, the subject of the article under discussion concludes that scientists, based on their previous observations, conclusions and testimony about "a textbook example of a Type II-P supernova" were victims of yet another scientific fallacy which they previously held as fact.

I recall being taught the "origin of Earth's Moon" in my 5th grade science class some 50+ years ago. It was presented as undeniable (infallible), settled fact and my test grades depended on regurgitating the "correct" answer. In my lifetime I have seen no less than 7 alternative "scientific" theories about the Moon's origin (and that doesn't include the multiple hypotheses of "Ancient Alien Theorists" from the Church of Giorgio Tsoukalos who is not a "genuine scientist", but plays one on TV and the Internet and is pied-piper to millions across the globe who hang their salvation on his every theory about ancient alien "gods". Perhaps that early encounter with science as fact informed my current skepticism. This is in no way proof, nor do I assert that all "settled" science is flawed, only that my God has a cosmic sense of humor.

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