A 120 million year old disaster

A 120 million year old disaster is reaching us and peaking next week:

The Cigar Galaxy, located just off the Big Dipper in the Northeast, is host to the Supernova 2014J which is brightening to a peak magnitude of 10.5 early next week and can easily be seen by backyard telescopes and even binoculars in the Northern Hemisphere during that time.

The supernova event was discovered popping into our skies by students from the University of London Observatory, who said ?One minute we?re eating pizza, then five minutes later we?ve helped to discover a supernova. I couldn?t believe it. It reminds me why I got interested in astronomy in the first place? (Tom Wright, student).

This is the closest supernova that has been discovered in our night skies in years

? although it did take 120 million years for us to get to see it.

You can read more about it here: http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2014/01/23/nearby-supernova-has-astronomers-going-gaga/

SN 2014J University of London Observation

Kinda puts things into perspective, doesn?t it?

 

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