Sunday, December 04, 2011

New Born Super Nova Discovered


Science Digest reports that in the annals of Radio Astronomy - a first has taken place.

Astronomers have managed to take photographs of the youngest supernova yet at a mere 14 days old! This sets a record for the earliest photos of a supernova yet.

The photos were taken in June and place the exploded star in the galaxy M 51. This object is also known as the Whirlpool Galaxy because of it's pronounced spiral formation and is apx. 13 lightyears from Earth. M-51 in English is also part of the "hunting dogs" constellation associated with Bootes constellation.

The crew that took the photographs used a technique that allows several widely separated telescopes to be combined to simulate a telescope hundreds of miles across. Telescopes in Spain, Sweden, Germany and Finland were used in this project.

complete Science Digest article here

No comments: