One of the nearest stellar explosions since 1987 could be seen with binoculars in two weeks.
Last night, light from a new supernova reached astronomers on Earth. Its origin: the nearby galaxy M82, some 3.5 megaparsecs away (11.4 million light years). It is one of the closest and brightest supernovae seen from Earth since a monster exploded in 1987 just 168,000 light years away. Astronomers say that the latest supernova is of the type 1a class, and may help reveal how such supernovae form. Moreover, because these supernovae are used as cosmic measuring sticks, understanding them better may help clarify the shape of the Universe.
The supernova was bright enough to be discovered with a modest telescope in an unlikely spot: cloudy north London. On 21 January, around 7 pm, Steve Fossey, an astronomer at University College London, was taking students through a routine lesson with a 35-centimetre telescope at the University of London Observatory. Images of M82, also known as the Cigar Galaxy, appeared on their screens. Fossey noticed something unusual: a star sitting on the edge of the galaxy disc. It did not match Fossey's memory of the galaxy, nor images they looked up on the Internet. "It kind of looked odd," he says.
As the sky grew cloudy, Fossey's students checked their telescope for instrumental errors, and also that the object wasn't an asteroid. Fossey fired up another small telescope at the observatory and confirmed the object's location before clouds closed in at 7:45 pm. Then he emailed colleagues at California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
There, Yi Cao took up the baton. Cao, a graduate student in astronomy, sought a spectrum for the object – crucial for confirming the object as a supernova and discerning its type. He quickly arranged to begin observations with a 3.5 meter spectrograph-equipped telescope in New Mexico. Just before 9 am UK time, Cao dashed off a note to the Astronomer’s Telegram, a notification service. He reported that the spectrum matched that of a type Ia supernova, and that it may brighten for another two weeks.
http://www.nature.com/news/supernova-erupts-in-nearby-galaxy-1.14579
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