Blast From The Past

A supernova is the death blast of a giant star, far larger than our Sun.  Massive stars go out with a bang, outshining entire galaxies, allowing us to see them across the universe.  A supernova observed in 2013 occurred in a distant galaxy and took over 30 Million years to reach Earth, where the timing was perfect for us to observe and study it.  And now that it’s been studied, the explosion was truly the death of a giant. The supernova, named 2013 ej, was discovered in June 2013 in the galaxy M74 in the constellation Pisces.  It was the closest supernova...

Shock Breakout Visualized

I just released a post about the Kepler Space Telescope and its observation of the shock breakout of an exploding star, the exact moment when it’s considered a supernova.  Further to this I wanted to show some of the great visualizations of the event, and to show you just how energetic and luminous a supernova really is, compared to our Sun.   The video shows the shock breakout, the bright flash lasting an hour, before the star rapidly increases in brightness to it’s maximum.  Not shown is the gradual fading of the supernova, which can take days or even weeks....