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Historical Supernova
Supernova are very rare events. However, a handfull have been observed and recorded by human civilizations in the past two thousand years.
| SN Year | Countries Observed | Location | Other information |
| SN 185 | China | Centaurus | Visible for 8 months. |
| SN 393 | China | Scorpius | Visible for 7 months. |
| SN 1006 | China, Japan, Korea, Arab, Europe | Lupus | Record brighest SN, m = -9 |
| SN 1054 | China, Japan | Taurus | Seen today as Crab Nebula |
| SN 1181 | China, Japan | Cassiopeia | Visible for 6 months. Dim. |
| SN 1572 | China, Korea and Europe | Cassiopeia | Tycho's SN, visible 15 mos. |
| SN 1604 | China, Korea, Europe | Ophiuchus | Kepler's SN, visible for 1 yr |
SN 1987a In the Magellanic Clouds
This was the first time a star we had previously known went
supernova. The star was Sk -69 202. Spectra taken ten years earlier showed SK -69 202 to be a
normal Blue Supergiant. It's Main Sequence mass was about 20 Suns. NOW when we look for this
star, we see this instead:
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Seeing a massive supergiant star explode as a supernova was
VERY important. It proved that indeed, these types of
stars DO experience supernova as predicted by theory.
In the first 0.4 seconds of the core collapse, neutrinos form and immediately escape. A TRILLION neutrinos passed through YOUR BODY on February 23rd, 1987. Two hours later the light was detected. The central object in the picture to the left, which is what's left of the surface of the exploding star, has recently become detected using the Hubble Space Telescope. It is expanding at about 12,000 km/second! This blast wave is just starting to hit the inner right shown here. |