Author Doris Lessing began her sci-fi chronicle of space with this dedication: “For my father, who used to sit, hour after hour, night after night, outside our home in Africa, watching the stars.”
Articles with Supernovas
The doomed star Eta Carinae • Jon Morse/NASA/STScI (Public Domain)
Artist's impression of supernova remnant SN 1987A • ESO/L. Calçada (CC BY 3.0)
A blowup in the neighborhood?
The February [1987] supernova continues to shine brightly in southern skies. That exploding star is 160,000 light-years from Earth, in a companion galaxy of the Milky Way — and far enough away to pose no threat to us.
Remnant of Kepler's Supernova (SN 1604) • NASA/ESA/JHU/R.Sankrit & W.Blair (Public Domain)
New stars that reshaped our view of the universe
A poet of Shakespeare’s time was apt to say that his love (for his lover) was not “sublunar.” He meant that his love was like the stars — constant and unchanging.
Photo by Gage Smith on Unsplash
Novas: Brilliant destroyers of life?
One Friday evening in August of 1975, while working late, I heard a radio report of a new star in the constellation Cygnus the Swan. I rushed outside, where it took but an instant to recognize the intruder.
Remnant of Supernova 1572 seen in X-ray light • NASA/CXC/Rutgers/J.Warren & J.Hughes et al.
Stellar shock-wave: Maker of stars
On the evening of November 11 in the year 1572, the Renaissance astronomer Tycho Brahe, as was his custom, contemplated the stars in the clear evening sky. Suddenly he noticed, almost directly over his head, a new star, surpassing in brilliance all the others.