Supernovas explained: Scientists unlock origin of universe’s brightest event
The discovery of a supernova only hours after its explosion has probably solved a long-standing mystery on the origin of the brightest known phenomena in the universe, scientists reported Wednesday.
On August 24, scientists witnessed the spectacular eruption of light and energy thrown off by the birth of SN 2011fe, the brightest and — at a mere 20.9 million light years away — closest-to-Earth supernova in over 25 years.
One light year is the distance that light travels in 365 Earth days, about 9.46 trillion kilometres or 5.87 trillion miles.
“We caught the supernova just 11 hours after it exploded, so soon that we were later able to calculate the actual moment of the explosion within 20 minutes,” said Peter Nugent of the US Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and lead author of one of two studies, both published in Nature.
“With this close-up look, we found things nobody had dreamed of,” he said in a statement.