A new supernova explosion was discovered in another galaxy, far away, marked NGC 2146. While it just appeared to our telescopes, the real stellar explosion occurred over 70 million years ago. But the light from this stellar outburst took that look to reach us from deep space.
Supernovae are the largest explosions in the universe that we can detect and observe with our instruments and sometimes even with our eyes if they occur in our own galaxy.
This latest supernova occurred in the galaxy marked NGC 2146, and while it is far away, it can be seen with a telescope and a camera in your backyard. The image below shows this galaxy in deep space, as captured with a small smart scope named Seestar S50.
THE LIFE OF STARS
Every star in the universe burns nuclear fuel in its core to stay alive. This produces huge amounts of energy, so the center gets very hot. Heat generates pressure, and that pressure pushes outwards.
But a star is in a balance between two opposite forces. The star’s gravity also tries to squeeze the star into a minuscule object. With the outward pressure from the nuclear fuel burning in the star’s core, this outward squeeze by gravity is resisted, and the star is nicely balanced.
But just like our cars, the star eventually runs out of fuel/energy. And when that happens, it starts to cool off, as its furnace is no longer working. This also causes the pressure to drop.
It means that gravity starts to win, and the star suddenly collapses in mere seconds. You can only imagine something million times the mass of Earth collapsing into its core in just a few seconds. Such a rapid star collapse creates enormous shock waves that cause the outer part of the star to explode or burst out.
One of the best supernova examples in our own galaxy is the Crab Nebula, seen in the image below. It exploded in the year 1054, and was visible during daylight. Image credit: NASA, ESA, J. Hester and A. Loll (Arizona State University)
This nebula/shell left behind by the star explosion is the star material dispersed around with the explosion’s shockwave. It has an apparent magnitude of 8.4 and is located 6,500 light years from Earth in the constellation Taurus. The Crab Nebula can be spotted with a small telescope in your backyard and is best observed in January.
SUPERNOVA 2024ABFL
The new supernova that was now discovered is actually in another galaxy, as mentioned before. This galaxy can be found in the constellation of Camelopardalis, not far away from the north star Polaris.
The supernova itself was discovered on November 15th by Koichi Itagaki. In the image below you can see the first discovery photo of this explosion in a far away galaxy, appearing just as another star. You can see the parent galaxy and the supernova marked in the circle.
Because the parent galaxy is so far away, it took the light from the supernova explosion 70 million years to reach us. That is the distance between the Earth and that galaxy. So dinosaurs were still roaming on Earth when the light form the star explosion left that galaxy.
This supernova was also confirmed by the Rochester Academy of Science, and was added to their list of supernova events discovered.
The next image below is a capture of the parent galaxy, NGC 2146, taken just a month ago in October. Here, there was no supernova visible in its faint outer arm. This image was taken by the author of this article, Andrej Flis.
Looking at the data captured over the past few days, you can start to see the supernova appear with a blue hue. The image below is from the same author and actually has much more total data gathered, which is why the galaxy looks brighter than in the image above, and with more outside stars.
We also produced a video that shows a direct comparison of both images, before and after, where the supernova appears. The outside stars are in our own galaxy, while the marked supernova is actually in a different galaxy.
You can also see some other stars appear in the background, which is only due to a larger amount of data/light being gathered for the second image.
It is really remarkable to think that it took this light 70 million years to reach us, and what a distance it traveled at the highest speed possible. So, while it only looks like a distant star, it’s actually a light source from another galaxy, far, far away.
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