Supernova Photo:NASA Blueshift
Do you live in a secluded country area with no street lighting? Can I come over tonight? Don’t worry it’s not for murdery reasons, it’s because tonight’s the night, in the UK, we can see a supernova.
A supernova is an exploding star. It’s also a model of caravan. In which I have stayed and I can confirm…pretty spacious. The explosion and death of this star will be visible from the UK after twilight, provided the sky is clear. It will be the first to be spotted from the UK in 40 years and is 21 light years away. For Doctor Who fans and those (me) fascinated by time travel that means what we witness tonight will actually be a death that happened 21 million years ago.
To spot the star tonight you need to find the plough (a constellation that, in my teen years, could be picked out on my forehead) at twilight, "draw an imaginary line through the second and third stars in the handle and follow that line up and left. The supernova is four degrees along, or around the distance taken up by five full moons in the sky," said Dr Mark Sullivan, an astrophysics research fellow at Oxford University in the Guardian.
We may never see another star explosion like this in our lifetimes, so happy spotting and no pressure.
Kate
A supernova is an exploding star. It’s also a model of caravan. In which I have stayed and I can confirm…pretty spacious. The explosion and death of this star will be visible from the UK after twilight, provided the sky is clear. It will be the first to be spotted from the UK in 40 years and is 21 light years away. For Doctor Who fans and those (me) fascinated by time travel that means what we witness tonight will actually be a death that happened 21 million years ago.
To spot the star tonight you need to find the plough (a constellation that, in my teen years, could be picked out on my forehead) at twilight, "draw an imaginary line through the second and third stars in the handle and follow that line up and left. The supernova is four degrees along, or around the distance taken up by five full moons in the sky," said Dr Mark Sullivan, an astrophysics research fellow at Oxford University in the Guardian.
We may never see another star explosion like this in our lifetimes, so happy spotting and no pressure.
Kate
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