New supernova thrills astronomers and skywatchers around the world

www.space.com ^ | MAY 25, 2023 | By Elizabeth Howell

[Red Badger]

The Pinwheel Galaxy has a new bright spot. ... an animation showing a bright star explosion appearing in a spiral galaxy

Long Island, New York-based astrophotographer Steven Bellavia produced this composite animation of the Pinwheel Galaxy using an image taken on April 21 and comparing it to another image taken on May 21, which clearly shows the supernova appearing. (Image credit: Steven Bellavia) Astronomers and amateurs alike are excited about a new star explosion visible in small telescopes.

The new supernova popped into visibility on May 19 in the Pinwheel Galaxy, (also designated as Messier 101, or M101). The galaxy is visible in a small telescope under dark-sky conditions, as long as you use a wide field of view and a low-power eyepiece.

Supernova hunter Koichi Itagaki, from Yamagata, Japan, first spotted the explosion, which was confirmed the following day (May 20) by telescopes of the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) in California.

Long-exposure photographs make the supernova easier to spot. The supernova was formed when a star, much more massive than our own sun, ran out of fuel to burn in its core. Since the core could not support the mass of the star any more, the star collapsed on itself and created a gigantic explosion.

Several observers shared their excitement on Twitter, often aided by imagery or data as they talked about the supernova with the public.

Related: This new supernova is the closest to Earth in a decade. It's visible in the night sky right now.

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute in Mountain View, California joined several amateur astronomers in providing footage of the supernova, which is easily visible in amateur telescopes.

Professional astronomers shared data or alerted the community about the rare event, which may be a little hard to spot if you're not used to looking for such things.

"Just note that this galaxy and supernova aren't the easiest objects to spot in the sky," Space.com writer Joe Rao wrote in a recent story.

"Part of the reason for its visibility being problematic is its apparent size: M101 is roughly one-third the apparent diameter of the moon; thus its overall brightness is 'spread out' to such a degree that the contrast between it and the background sky makes it somewhat difficult to perceive."

If you want to look at M101 or any other deep-sky objects, our guides to the best telescopes and best binoculars are a great place to start. We can also help you take pictures of this new supernova with our guides to how to photograph the moon, as well as the best cameras for astrophotography and best lenses for astrophotography.

Several folks commented on how smoke from huge wildfires in Canada's west affected observations, but the supernova was nevertheless still visible through the haze.

Some folks used the opportunity to comment on activities by SpaceX and its billionaire CEO, Elon Musk.

SpaceX has sent more than 4,000 Starlink broadband spacecraft into orbit to date, and the company has been criticized for the satellites' effect on amateur astronomy as they cross in front of objects.

[Nateman]

The neutrinos from SN 1987a , after traveling over 100000 light years , were only delayed by seconds if at all. A neutrino can weigh no more than 1.1 electron volts (eV)—less than one-500,000th the mass of an electron. Since the energy of these neutrinos was in the millions of electron volts they had to be traveling very close to the speed of light to have that much energy. The models of supernovas predict 99% of the energy of the supernova is carried away by neutrinos.

It is my prediction that most of dark matter is merely neutrinos that have slowed down somehow. The universe pumps these particles out in huge amounts with almost nothing capable of removing them.

[Red Badger]

[Nateman]

I hear wood chippers are good at removing pedophiles.

[Red Badger]

The Mafia used meat industrial grinders......protein is protein.............

[minnesota_bound]

If we are in the path of a gamma ray burst we would be fried and that could be from stars thousands of light years away or even billions. ________________________ With a magnetic field hundreds of trillions times that of Earth, any living thing would be dead before it got to the magnetar's surface, because the magnetar would have the power to scramble every atom in a person's body. Even at a distance comparable to the half-way point between the Earth and the moon, a magnetar would be able to suck keys out of pockets. https://www.tampabay.com/archive/1998/09/30/distant-star-zapped-us-nasa-says/ _______________________ However, a sufficiently large gamma-ray burst could theoretically strip the planet of its atmosphere and cause a mass extinction event. Indeed, it is widely believes that a gamma-ray burst caused the Ordovician extinction roughly 443 million years ago. these bursts generate as as much energy as our sun will during its entire 10 billion year lifetime. On this recent occasion, the explosive event — now officially dubbed GRB 221009A — traveled roughly 1.9 billion light years to reach Earth https://www.salon.com/2022/10/18/a-gamma-ray-burst--possibly-the-brightest-of-all-time--sweeps-over-earth/