Supernova goes off in M82; closest SN in 20 years

[chrisspringob]

Type Ia Supernova goes off in M82, ~12 million light years away, making it the closest one since 1993:

http://www.universetoday.com/108386/bright-new-supernova-blows-up-in-nearby-m82-the-cigar-galaxy/

 

[rhubarbodendron]

splendid! Thanks for posting!!
Now if only that stupid fog would go away! The forecast says rain and fog for the next week (ah well, time enough to polish my telescope's mirror and get a camera adapter)

 

[BillJ]

Boggles the mind that we are just now seeing something that happened twelve million years ago.

 

[rhubarbodendron]

Well, here you read posts that were written hours or days ago. And in today's newspaper you read about things that happened yesterday. And if you lie in the sun you enjoy radiation that was sent out hours or even days ago (the recent solar storm took 2 days to arrive) and light that was emitted 8.3 minutes ago. There's not that much difference, really. Only the time frame is a little bigger.