From Sky & Telescope

On January 21st a group of astronomy students spotted a surprise supernova in M82, the famous nearby irregular galaxy in Ursa Major. Since then it has brightened to about magnitude 10.7 (as of Monday, January 27th), and it might still have a way to go. It’s showing a color distinctly on the orange side of white, due to reddening by dust within M82.

[A “before & after” view]

Soon after its discovery, Yi Cao and colleagues at Caltech took a spectrum that indicated it was two weeks away from reaching its peak brightness in the first few days of February. This and other spectra showed it to be a Type Ia supernova — an exploded white dwarf — with debris expanding at up to 20,000 kilometers per second. Because it appears reddened, it must also be dimmed by dust along our line of sight.

[…]

Remarkably, the supernova had gone undiscovered for a week as it brightened.

[…] this is said to be the nearest Type Ia supernova since 1972. That’s the kind that’s so valuable for measuring the size and expansion rate of the universe. Despite the dimming and reddening, astronomers hope that SN 2014J will provide new details about exactly what happens in these “standard-candle” explosions.

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M82 is fairly close to the north celestial pole, so it’s not visible from most of the southern hemisphere.

PM 2Ring said:

M82 is fairly close to the north celestial pole, so it’s not visible from most of the southern hemisphere.

Bummer. But still cool.

PM 2Ring said:

On January 21st a group of astronomy students spotted a surprise supernova in M82,

A surprise?

OCDC said:

PM 2Ring said:

M82 is fairly close to the north celestial pole, so it’s not visible from most of the southern hemisphere.

Bummer. But still cool.

Agreed.

I’m still hoping that one day I’ll get to see a SN that’s close enough to see with the naked eye. Statistically, we’re way overdue for a decent SN in the Milky Way (we ought to get roughly one per century), but there hasn’t been one since Tycho’s time, but that one got bright enough to see during the day. But I guess there could’ve been one (or more) hidden from us on the other side of the galaxy.

sibeen said:

A surprise?

This type of supernova is caused by material accreting onto the white dwarf from a companion star, so it’s possible to get some forewarning of the explosion. OTOH, there are a lot of candidate WD’s in nearby galaxies and it’s not currently practical to keep a close watch on them all.

Type Ia supernova

PM 2Ring said:

[A “before & after” view]

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M82 is fairly close to the north celestial pole, so it’s not visible from most of the southern hemisphere.

Pretty groovy.

ms spock said:

PM 2Ring said:

[A “before & after” view]

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M82 is fairly close to the north celestial pole, so it’s not visible from most of the southern hemisphere.

Pretty groovy.

I see something weird on that. Up the top centre portion of the photograph there are two stars shown in the first photo. In the second, which I think has a longer exposure, the right hand star disappears.

sibeen said:

ms spock said:

PM 2Ring said:

[A “before & after” view]

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M82 is fairly close to the north celestial pole, so it’s not visible from most of the southern hemisphere.

Pretty groovy.

I see something weird on that. Up the top centre portion of the photograph there are two stars shown in the first photo. In the second, which I think has a longer exposure, the right hand star disappears.

Seems to be a few of those.

morrie said:

sibeen said:

ms spock said:

Pretty groovy.

I see something weird on that. Up the top centre portion of the photograph there are two stars shown in the first photo. In the second, which I think has a longer exposure, the right hand star disappears.

Seems to be a few of those.

Yep, in the bottom right hand corner the same thing happens.

sibeen said:

ms spock said:

PM 2Ring said:

[A “before & after” view]

---

M82 is fairly close to the north celestial pole, so it’s not visible from most of the southern hemisphere.

Pretty groovy.

I see something weird on that. Up the top centre portion of the photograph there are two stars shown in the first photo. In the second, which I think has a longer exposure, the right hand star disappears.

There are others

I think it’s just the quality

sibeen said:

morrie said:

sibeen said:

I see something weird on that. Up the top centre portion of the photograph there are two stars shown in the first photo. In the second, which I think has a longer exposure, the right hand star disappears.

Seems to be a few of those.

Yep, in the bottom right hand corner the same thing happens.

I don’t know what’s going on there. The 1st image is a lot noisier, and it wasn’t specifically a shot of the star that’s gone supernova.

I suppose it’s possible that the extra “stars” are random bits & pieces in our own solar system that have since moved out of field, except that that part of the sky is a long way from the ecliptic, so you wouldn’t expect to see many asteroids etc in that general area.

Pity MC, Cusp & Brendon don’t hang out here…

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/01/22/kaboom_nearby_galaxy_m82_hosts_a_new_supernova.html

Well my claim to fame is that I messaged Phil Plait about a couple of typos in this article about the M82 SN and he sent me a personal reply on twitter THANKING ME! ZOMG.

Another article:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/01/23/supernova_adam_block_photo_of_the_exploding_star_in_m82.html

watched that swallowed by a BH on monday night. was ok. one bit that puzzled me that they knew the mass of this gas cloud was about 3x the earth’s mass yet one astronomer reckoned she hoped it was a star. huh?

JudgeMental said:

watched that swallowed by a BH on monday night. was ok. one bit that puzzled me that they knew the mass of this gas cloud was about 3x the earth’s mass yet one astronomer reckoned she hoped it was a star. huh?

—-

I took it to mean the remnants of a star being torn apart

podzol said:

Well my claim to fame is that I messaged Phil Plait about a couple of typos in this article about the M82 SN and he sent me a personal reply on twitter THANKING ME! ZOMG.

Kewl!

I took it to mean the remnants of a star being torn apart

maybe, but 3x earth mass is still a small mass and they would have seen the star. and i guess if they have plotted the orbit then they could find the star it came from.

JudgeMental said:

watched that swallowed by a BH on monday night. was ok. one bit that puzzled me that they knew the mass of this gas cloud was about 3x the earth’s mass yet one astronomer reckoned she hoped it was a star. huh?

Weird. Maybe that was her hope before accurate mass estimates of the gas cloud were made. [/guessing]

i thought that too. strange to have left it in though.

PM 2Ring said:

podzol said:

Well my claim to fame is that I messaged Phil Plait about a couple of typos in this article about the M82 SN and he sent me a personal reply on twitter THANKING ME! ZOMG.

Kewl!

Well deserved as well. :)

roughbarked said:

PM 2Ring said:

podzol said:

Well my claim to fame is that I messaged Phil Plait about a couple of typos in this article about the M82 SN and he sent me a personal reply on twitter THANKING ME! ZOMG.

Kewl!

Well deserved as well. :)

Thanks. I knew I couldn’t post my squeal of happiness on Facebook, most of my friends would be: “wot?”

Interesting to see what they come up with regarding dark energy and the SN.

This supernova also made an appearance on apod from 24 Jan 2014. apod

By the way, I just love the pictures of the Sun from the Trace satellite, eg. this one from apod on 26 Jan 2014. apod

I have a question

Don’t we have automated telescopes to look for supernovas, or just not enough of them?

I bet the astronomy students were surprised

Exciting!