NASA to Announce Success of Long Galactic Hunt

Skaloop · May 14, 2008

Someone from Wired is blogging about it with live updates.

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/05/liveblog-nasa-a.html

Not a groundbreaking discovery, but kind of cool.

Lord Emsworth · May 14, 2008

Dragar said:
So the answer is: the most recent galactic supernovae event! A mere 160 years ago.

That means it is like 160 lightyears away?

thaumaturgy · May 14, 2008

Skaloop said:
Someone from Wired is blogging about it with live updates.

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/05/liveblog-nasa-a.html

Not a groundbreaking discovery, but kind of cool.

Yeah I was kinda let down. I mean, I'm still missing some socks.

Actually it is kind of interesting. Just 140 years ago? Very neat.

Lazuline · May 14, 2008

Wait, sorry, I must've missed something. This happened 140 years ago, 26,000 light years away? How was it detected, again?

Skaloop · May 14, 2008

Lazuline said:
Wait, sorry, I must've missed something. This happened 140 years ago, 26,000 light years away? How was it detected, again?

No, the supernova as we are seeing it now is 140 years old, but it went nova 26,140 years ago.

It's like if I have a picture of me as a baby. The photo itself is 31 years old, but we see a baby as it was when it was a few months old.

AV1611VET · May 14, 2008

Don't tell me there's something out there again?

Aren't we still recovering from the syzygy of 1988, when all those planetary alignments were supposed to rip this planet apart?

Or maybe it's another UFO behind some comet that some "scientist" discovered behind Hale-Bopp?

AintNoMonkey · May 14, 2008

SOrry I didn't jump on the update as soon as it came out. Thanks to Dragar and Skaloop for posting about it. I had finals all morning, so I just heard about it an hour or so ago. Interesing discovery, but not what I was hoping for. Should still provide us with a good bit of info though.

AintNoMonkey · May 14, 2008

AV1611VET said:
Don't tell me there's something out there again?

Aren't we still recovering from the syzygy of 1988, when all those planetary alignments were supposed to rip this planet apart?

Or maybe it's another UFO behind some comet that some "scientist" discovered behind Hale-Bopp?

If you don't have something to contribute, please don't pollute the thread.

Worst member= confirmed.

AV1611VET · May 14, 2008

What is it? I'm dying to know!

(I thought they just discovered a bunch of stuff around Pluto that made them change our dictionaries all around.)

AV1611VET · May 14, 2008

AintNoMonkey said:
If you don't have something to contribute, please don't pollute the thread.

Then what is it? Please tell me, so I won't have to guess.

AintNoMonkey said:
Worst member= confirmed.

I thought I had signatures disabled???

Skaloop · May 14, 2008

Here's a pic:

I've also read up a bit more on it. That thing is 13 light years across, and the orange parts are gas at millions of degrees. It's expanding at 14,000 km/second (5% of c).

Cabal · May 14, 2008

AV1611VET said:
Don't tell me there's something out there again?

Yup, space is pretty big, AV.

And it's a few hundred million lightyears bigger than you'd think it was.

Skaloop · May 14, 2008

AV1611VET said:
What is it? I'm dying to know!

(I thought they just discovered a bunch of stuff around Pluto that made them change our dictionaries all around.)

It's a supernova. A star that has, in layman's terms, died and exploded. It's during a supernova that heavier elements are created and sent off into space. What makes this one interesting is that we are seeing it as it was when it was only 140 years old, which is very young. It beats the previous youngest by 200 years.

In one good analogy I heard, the previous one we were looking at was like looking at ripples from a rock thrown in a lake; this one is like seeing things as the rock is entering the water. There will be much to see and learn from this discovery.

Paconious · May 14, 2008

Skaloop said:
It's during a supernova that heavier elements are created and sent off into space.

This particular event now has a measurement. Based on the preliminary data obtained, the gases on the supernova are moving at 14,0000 kilometers per second or 5% the speed of light. A very good, layman friendly, explanation of this discovery can be found at

badastronomy.com/bablog/2008/05/14/youngest-galactic-supernova-not-aliens-found

I'm not allowed to link :o

Skaloop · May 14, 2008

Paconious said:
This particular event now has a measurement. Based on the preliminary data obtained, the gases on the supernova are moving at 14,0000 kilometers per second or 5% the speed of light. A very good, layman friendly, explanation of this discovery can be found at

badastronomy.com/bablog/2008/05/14/youngest-galactic-supernova-not-aliens-found

I'm not allowed to link :o

Heh, that's where I'm getting my info for now, too. I'll put in the link proper on your behalf...

http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2008/05/14/youngest-galactic-supernova-not-aliens-found/

AV1611VET · May 14, 2008

Okay --- thanks, guys.

MasterOfKrikkit · May 14, 2008

Huh, wouldn't have guessed supernova. Cool. Having checked the press release, it seems that the "lies for children" version of the story is already circulating :doh:

This supernova hasn't just been found -- it was found in 1985. The big news is that a new measurement (and comparison with the 85 measurement) has determined that it is still very young, making it one of the handful (10ish) of post-1680 supernovae that should be out there, based on standard estimates. (1680 being the last known galactic supernova.)

From the press release:

The tracking of this source began in 1985 when astronomers, led by Green, used the VLA to identify G1.9+0.3 as the remnant of a supernova explosion near the center of our Galaxy. Based on its small size, it was thought to have resulted from a supernova that exploded about 400 to 1000 years ago.

Twenty two years later, Chandra observations of this object revealed that the remnant had expanded by a surprisingly large amount, about 16% since 1985. This indicates that the supernova remnant is much younger than previously thought.

The young age was confirmed when new radio observations from the VLA were made just within the past several weeks. This "apples to apples" comparison nails the age of the remnant to be about 140 years (less if it has been slowing down), making it the youngest on record in the Milky Way.

Dragar · May 14, 2008

Lord Emsworth said:
That means it is like 160 lightyears away?

It's 26,000 light-years away. The light would have reached us 140 years ago, so we say it 'happened' 140 years ago. The light we are seeing now was released 140-years after it went bang.

Bombila · May 14, 2008

Amazing. I'd be an astronomer if higher maths didn't cause me to feel faint and require a sandwich to revive me.

AintNoMonkey · May 14, 2008

Bombila said:
Amazing. I'd be an astronomer if higher maths didn't cause me to feel faint and require a sandwich to revive me.

seconded

NASA to Announce Success of Long Galactic Hunt

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