Massive and Bright: Latest Discoveries on Supernova SN 2023ixf and How to Observe It with Entry-Level Telescopes

2023-06-07 15:07:09

A supernova has traveled nearly 21 million light-years to grace the night sky and if you can’t yet see it, there’s no reason to worry because it won’t disappear quickly, according to scientists.

The new supernova first appeared on May 19 when supernova hunter Koichi Itagaki of Yamagata, Japan, detected a new bright spot in the Pinwheel Galaxy. The supernova was confirmed the next day by the Zwicky Transit Facility (ZTF) in California, according to RT.

Fortunately for sky watchers and astrophotographers, astronomers expect the supernova to be visible for some time.

“We expect the brightness to remain fairly constant for weeks, if not months, and it will remain bright,” Daniel Burley, an astrophysicist at the John Moores Observatory in Liverpool, told Profund Space.org.

And if you want to look at supernova SN 2023ixf, the Pinwheel galaxy or the night sky in general, there are a range of entry-level telescopes that can provide a good view of the event, making sure you get the right telescope eyepiece.

Currently, the supernova, SN 2023ixf, is one of the largest and brightest in a decade, and although it is beyond the visibility of the naked human eye, it can be easily seen with a small telescope or even high-magnification binoculars.

Burley predicts that the supernova will retain its current brightness “for a long time, maybe even two months.” Then it slowly begins to fade until its detectability in visible light becomes low again over the next year, two or three years, Perley says.

Peter Brown, a researcher at Texas A&M Supernova, explains that most normal type II supernovae, the same classification as SN 2023ixf, have a constant brightness for about 100 days before they start to decline.

But the new explosion differs slightly from its predecessors, according to Brown, as most supernovae of the second type fall sharply in the ultraviolet range immediately after their discovery, but SN 2023ixf remained constantly bright, according to the intense observations made using NASA’s Swift multi-wave telescope. .

The supernovae glow as material ejected from the star interacts with the surrounding environment. So even if it starts to dim, SN 2023ixf could glow temporarily if it interacts with the dense clouds or “shell stars” that surround the dying star.

Even after it can no longer be seen at visible wavelengths, the supernova will likely continue to brighten in other parts of the spectrum. Large telescopes should be able to observe the new discovery for years, Brown said, while space instruments such as NASA’s Hubble Telescope or the James Webb Space Telescope may be able to study the explosion for decades.

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