MAGAZINE OF THE SOCIE TY FOR SCIENCE & THE PUBLIC mAGAZiNe OF THe SOCie TY FOR SCieNCe & THe PUbLiC
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EDITOR IN CHIEF Tom Siegfried
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When wishing upon a star,
be careful what you wish
When astronomers wish upon a star,
their dream seldom comes true. That’s
because they always wish a nearby star
would explode, and that rarely happens.
Last month, though, a star in the not-so-far-away galaxy M101 gave some
astronomers their wish, as it brightened
from a tiny speck in the cosmos into a
brilliant cosmic lightbulb. Supernova PTF 11kly was spotted
August 24, perhaps only 12 hours after the initiation of the
explosion, as Nadia Drake reports in this issue (Page 5).
That’s by Earth-based clocks, of course. From an intergalactic perspective, the explosion occurred 21 million years
ago; it took light that long to reach Earth from M101 (aka the
Pinwheel Galaxy), 21 million light-years away. For supernovas, that’s actually pretty darn close — in recent decades only
one other supernova, in the Large Magellanic Cloud (a satellite galaxy to the Milky Way), has blown up closer.
Astronomers are even more excited about this new one,
though, because its progenitor star was a white dwarf. When
white dwarfs explode (a category of supernova designated
as type 1a), their brightness (along with the timing of their
brightening and subsequent dimming) provides excellent
clues to their distances. Consequently they make good cosmic yardsticks (excuse me, parsec sticks) to help scientists
gauge the dimensions of the heavens. Studying type 1a supernovas has provided compelling evidence that the universe is
expanding at an ever faster rate.
PTF 11kly’s proximity does not necessarily make the
case for cosmic acceleration any stronger. That conclusion
rests on viewing supernovas at much greater distances. But
by being so nearby, PTF 11kly offers astronomers a superior
specimen for detailed study, a chance to understand the
inner workings of type 1a’s much more precisely.
It may be that the ensuing improved understanding
will confirm evidence from earlier supernovas and bolster
astronomers’ current beliefs about the universe’s behavior.
On the other hand, up-close-and-personal scrutiny of this
supernova may reveal oddities that someday invalidate the
faith astronomers have placed in type 1a parsec sticks. If so,
the standard picture of modern cosmology may crack into
a more complicated puzzle. Which only goes to show that
astronomers, like everybody else, should be careful what
they wish for.
—Tom Siegfried, Editor in Chief
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