A new Supernova is in our night sky! photo credit: Member Bill Brown
A new Supernova is in our night sky! This image was taken on May 31, 2023, in Tornado WV, a Bortle 4/5 area and has 4 hours of integration time. The image was captured with a Celestron 11″ SCT with a ZWO 294MC camera.
A supernova is what happens when a star has reached the end of its life and explodes in a brilliant burst of light. Supernovae can briefly outshine entire galaxies and radiate more energy than our sun will in its entire lifetime. They’re also the primary source of heavy elements in the universe. According to NASA, supernovae are “the largest explosion that takes place in space.”
Various civilizations recorded supernovae long before the telescope was invented in the 17th century. The oldest recorded supernova is RCW 86, which Chinese astronomers spotted in A.D. 185. Their records show that this “guest star” stayed in the sky for eight months, according to NASA.
The last supernova directly observed in the Milky Way was Kepler’s Supernova in 1604, appearing not long after Tycho’s Supernova in 1572, both of which were visible to the naked eye. The remnants of more recent supernovae have been found, and observations of supernovae in other galaxies suggest they occur in the Milky Way on average about three times every century. A supernova in the Milky Way would almost certainly be observable through modern astronomical telescopes. The most recent naked-eye supernova was SN 1987A, which was the explosion of a blue supergiant star in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite of the Milky Way.