Posted on 03/23/2021 6:11:25 AM PDT by Red Badger
The nova (left) and the same patch of sky four days earlier. (Yuji Nakamura/NAOJ)
According to reports in The Astronomer's Telegram, a star in the region of the constellation of Cassiopeia has just gone nova, and the glow is still visible in the night sky. If you live in the Northern Hemisphere and have even a basic telescope, you might want to head out and point it in that direction.
The first detection was made on 18 March 2021 by amateur astronomer Yuji Nakamura from the Mie Prefecture in Japan. In four frames captured using a 135-millimeter lens and a 15-second exposure, a bright, magnitude 9.6 glow was visible where none had been just four days earlier.
The find was quickly reported to the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, and scientists zeroed in to find out what was going on.
Using Kyoto University's Seimei Telescope, astronomers at the NAOJ and Kyoto University conducted spectroscopic observations, and used the 0.4-meter telescope at Kyoto University for multi-color photometric observations.
They confirmed that the event is indeed what we classify as a classical nova, the most common of the stellar explosions, and gave it the name V1405 Cas.
A classical nova is not the huge kaboom of a massive star, but an explosion on the surface of a white dwarf with a main-sequence binary companion on a close orbit - generally less than 12 hours. As the two stars whirl around each other, the tiny dense white dwarf siphons hydrogen from its larger, fluffier companion.
This hydrogen ends up in the smaller star's atmosphere, where it is heated up. When the hydrogen gets hot and dense enough, nuclear fusion is triggered on the white dwarf's surface, releasing a tremendous amount of energy that explosively ejects the unburned hydrogen into space.
Unlike a Type Ia supernova, in which the white dwarf explodes, both stars survive and continue their weird relationship, to explode again another day. The nova itself can continue to glow for some days or months.
It's not immediately clear which star produced V1405 Cas, but there is a strong candidate: the eclipsing variable (binary) star CzeV3217, which lies at an approximate distance of 5,500 light-years from the Solar System.
Further observations will help astronomers better understand the nova, and confirm that the source is indeed CzeV3217.
nova map (Yuji Nakamura/NAOJ)
Because stellar explosion events like these are so unpredictable, they're not always easy to catch quickly, so the discovery of V1405 Cas is pretty exciting.
If you want to get out there and try to see it for yourself, its coordinates are at right ascension 23 24 47.73, declination +61 11 14.8 - not far from the Cassiopeia star Caph, and an even shorter distance from B-type star HIP 115566.
While you're out there, keep your eyes peeled for anything out of the ordinary...
Just wait another 4.5 billion years, give or take a few million or so..............
Traditionally stars just burn out. Judy Garland, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, the list goes on.
‘It’s better to burn out, than to fade away... My My Hey Hey.’
so just for fun how long is a “day” to God?
To God, there is no such thing as a day.
Given the distance of 5,500 light-years, it didn’t just explode, it exploded 5,500 years ago. Just sayin.
Oddly enough, that’s when OUR civilizations were just getting started....................Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm............
not exactly
Just...? Try perhaps millions of years ago, if not more.
I’m guessing you mean that to God, “time” is irrelevant.
5500....................
What we call a day is when The Earth revolves once and it appears that the sun has risen and set. But that's just a matter of perception. God did not create the sun until the fourth "day". So, whatever a "day" was before than can only be known to and understood by God.
But feel free to enlighten me if the case is otherwise. It's been only in the last three years or so that most of what I have been taught in church and by my fellow Christians about God in the previous 35 years or was wrong. If I am wrong about this, please set me straight.
Mmmmm. Yeah. I guess in a way I kind of am. I'm not sure at what speed Jupiter revolves (or if it revolves at all), but, at whatever speed that is, it's most likely different than the speed that at which Earth revolves. So, in that case, what would God consider a day since He created Jupiter as well?
Holding out for another one visible during daylight.
SN 1006 recorded as casting the light of a quarter moon, about sixteen times the brightness with about three times the apparent diameter of Venus.
Boring... Old news...
On FR we should have heard about this 5,500 years ago when it was “relevant” news......
You’re just asking for a picture of Helen Thomas, aren’t you?.............
There are predictions that neutrinos should have been detected. So far no news on this.
They are a little slow.................covid...............
Alright... who is responsible? !
That star was ok the last time I looked.
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