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©1999 Sky Publishing Corp. All Rights Reserved.: August 1999
©1999 Sky Publishing Corp. All Rights Reserved.: August 1999
©1999 Sky Publishing Corp. All Rights Reserved.: August 1999
30 August 1999 Sky & Telescope 1999 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.
S u pe r n ova e ,
Neutrinos,
a n d A m at e u r
A st r o n o m e r s
They give birth astride a grave, the light gleams an instant,
then its night once more.
Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot
T
he last person to see and chronicle a supernova
outburst in our galaxy was Johannes Kepler. That
was in 1604, when the star now named after him ri-
valed Venus in brightness. By some measures were
1999 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved. Sky & Telescope August 1999 31
Behold, directly overhead, a certain strange star was sud-
denly seen, flashing its light with a radiant gleam. . . . As-
tonished and stupefied, I stood still. . . . When I had satisfied
myself that no star of that kind had ever shone forth before
. . . I began to doubt the faith of my own eyes. . . . Having
confirmed that my vision was not deceiving me . . . and
marveling that the sky had brought forth a certain new
phenomenon to be compared with the other stars, I imme-
diately got ready my instrument.
Tycho Brahe reflecting on the supernova of 1572
32 August 1999 Sky & Telescope 1999 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.
S&T / STEVEN SIMPSON
Material
raining
onto core
Neutrino
As soon as a heavyweight star like Betelgeuse ceases to produce heat, within a second its Earth-size core collapses to about 20 kilometers and
a torrent of neutrinos fly away into space. After the core reaches a density comparable to an atomic nucleus it bounces and causes a shock
wave to speed outward through the overlying gas. The shock pauses briefly, but after instabilities form behind it, the shock moving at a
tenth the speed of light resumes its voyage to the stars surface. It usually gets there in 12 to 24 hours, and then the supernova lights up.
Yo u M ay A l r e a dy H ave a S u pe r n ova D e t ec to r
1999 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved. Sky & Telescope August 1999 33
heres a new, exciting twist: if enough
neutrinos are collected by enough obser-
vatories, we should know not only that a
new star will arise but roughly where in
the sky we should look for it!
To find the supernova as quickly as
possible, a dedicated corps of searchers is
needed around the world. To guarantee
complete sky coverage, given the vagaries
of season and weather, its vital that hun-
dreds, even thousands, of observers par-
ticipate. There are no qualifications ex-
These maps show the distribution of carbon monoxide gas in the direction of two nearby su- cept patience! This effort is truly universal.
pernovae that apparently never became bright sights. A single contour represents one magni- If the dice roll just right, some naked-eye
tude of light extinction; each embedded contour represents two magnitudes more. According observer in Mongolia might spot the su-
to Thomas Dame, theres not enough material along our sightlines to dim these supernovae pernova first, while high-tech amateurs in
below naked-eye visibility unless they were hidden behind unusually dense clumps of gas, Europe sip Cinzano and wait for darkness.
ones so small that they were not resolved by the radio telescope that made these maps. SN To quickly tell amateurs and other
1320 is the closest supernova known to have occurred; SN 1680?, also known as Cassiopeia A, small-telescope users about the nearby
is a famous radio source. Courtesy Thomas Dame. supernova that will surely happen some-
day, efficient communication is essential.
Now, more than a decade later, we are armed with hindsight as Thus, when simultaneous detections at the neutrino observa-
well as with better and more abundant neutrino detectors. tories reach a predetermined level, the Supernova Neutrino
Some even have cute names like Super-K, SNO, MACRO, and Early Warning System (SNEWS) will send its best-guess posi-
AMANDA. tion of the supernova to AstroAlert, a new network established
by Sky & Telescope (see the box below). AstroAlert will echo
Lets Go Get Em! that message to all who have registered with nearby-supernova-
Before neutrinos arrive and sign the physicists guest book, no alert@skypub.com. The small-telescope community will then
one can predict where the next supernova will occur except swing into action and send observations of any supernova can-
that it will likely be within the Milky Ways glowing band or didate back via a standardized form.
enfolded by one of our neighboring galaxies. We also dont
know when the first glimmer of light will appear; if theres lots So What Are We Looking For?
of interstellar smog in the way, days or even weeks could pass Its impossible to predict how bright the next nearby superno-
before the star brightens enough to punch through. va will be or how long we will have to wait for it to pop off.
The delay between the neutrino emission and the rebound- But we can get a feel for the answers by looking at the ques-
ing shocks breakout through the stars photosphere should tions in several different ways.
provide ample time to mobilize the world community of ama- As a starting point, we can create a list, largely from Orien-
teur astronomers and other users of small telescopes. And tal and Arabic records, of supernovae that have been seen dur-
Th e A st r o A l e rt N ew s Se rv i c e
34 August 1999 Sky & Telescope 1999 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.
CHRIS HOWK / BLAIR SAVAGE / NIGEL SHARP / TODD TRIPP
Someone in deep space might see our Milky Way gal-
axy resembling this view of NGC 4013, a 12th-magnitude
edge-on spiral in Ursa Major (11h 58.5m, +43 57, 2000 coordinates).
Newly formed blue stars, some of them probably heavy enough to go super-
nova, dot the thick dust lane. Unfortunately for someone inside this galaxy as well
as our own the dust, and especially the gas associated with it, tends to hide these titanic
explosions from view. The bright object near the center is a star in our galaxy, not the core of NGC
4013. This image was taken April 8, 1997, with the 3.5-meter WIYN telescope atop Kitt Peak, Arizona. It is a
composite of blue, yellow, and red exposures totaling 30 minutes.
ing the last two millenniums. Visual Milky Way Supernovae (A.D. 11999)
Two nearby supernovae that should have shone brightly but Year Peak Duration b l Dist. Color
Mag. (months) () () (kpc)
apparently didnt are omitted from the list at right. SN 1680?,
also called Cassiopeia A, is one of the strongest radio sources in 185 8 20 2 315 1.0
the sky and was probably glimpsed by John Flamsteed at 6th 393 0 8 <5 345
magnitude. As shown on the facing page, extensive dimming 1006 10 24+ 15 328 1.4 Yellow
of its light by interstellar gas seems very unlikely. However, ac- 1054 4 22 6 185 2 Yellow
cording to Thomas Dame (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for 1181 0 6 3 131 2.6 Yellow-White
Astrophysics), one cant rule out the possibility that the super- 1572 4 16 1 120 2.3 Yellow-Red
nova went off behind a very small, very dense clump of gas. 1604 3 12 7 5 4.4 Yellow-Red
The recently discovered X-ray remnant of SN 1320 lies at a This table was compiled from a variety of sources but mainly David H. Clark and F.
distance of only about 650 light-years, making it the closest Richard Stephensons book The Historical Supernovae (1977) and an article by Richard G.
known supernova to Earth; its light could have equaled that of Strom in Astronomy and Astrophysics (Vol. 288, pages L14, 1994). Experts still argue
the full Moon! So why wasnt it seen? Again, extinction by in- over whether some of the entries in tables like this represent true supernovae; the five
terstellar gas and dust is extremely unlikely, says Dame. Per- that are boldfaced seem gold plated.The b and l quantities are the stars galactic lat-
haps both SN 1320 and SN 1680? mark a hitherto unknown itudes and longitudes; b = 0 indicates a star exactly in the plane of the Milky Way. A
class of supernovae that are optical duds (April issue, page 22). kiloparsec (kpc) equals 3,260 light-years. Color was in the eye of the beholder.
1999 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved. Sky & Telescope August 1999 35
18
All the entries in the list predate the A recent theoretical model (curves) tracks
invention of the telescope: seven con- the light variations of SN 1969L. Note that
17 V
spicuous naked-eye supernovae in this plateau Type II supernovas ultraviolet
1,400 years, or one every couple of cen- (U) light rises and fades faster than its blue
Absolute magnitude
turies, on average. So why havent we 16 (B) and yellow (V) light. Such a star halfway
B to the center of our galaxy could shine as
had another in 400 years? Whether be-
cause of bad statistics or bad luck, it 15
brightly as Venus but would probably be
seems were overdue by a factor of two. dimmed by interstellar dust. The theoretical
Determining how often supernovae U curves are for a star having 15 times the
14
explode in our Milky Way is fraught Suns mass and 240 times the Suns diame-
with uncertainties, the estimate being ter. They are courtesy Sergei Blinnikov.
13
confounded particularly by the gas and
dust that pervade the galactic plane. cannot reliably extrapolate from the
The rate can be judged in many ways, 12 rate of historical supernovae to obtain
0 50 100 150
but all involve surrogate evidence or Days after core collapse
a rate for the galaxy as a whole, since
initial assumptions that are subject to we appear to live in a region of the gal-
observational bias. These methods include our galaxys inven- axy with an enhanced event rate. Such would be the case if we
tory of heavyweight stars (which blow up 10 million years or were located adjacent to active star-forming regions, where su-
so after being born); the number of pulsars (spinning neutron pernova progenitors are most likely to be born. The bad news
stars, the progeny of supernovae); counts of expanding, is that this team finds the most likely rate for Milky Way su-
wreathlike supernova remnants; and the determination of su- pernovae to be only about two per century. The good news is
pernova rates in galaxies kindred to our own. that the vast bulk of these dying stars will spit out neutrinos.
The Milky Ways supernova rate was estimated in 1994 by So how bright might the next Milky Way supernova be? In
Richard G. Strom (Netherlands Foundation for Research in 1975 Sidney van den Bergh (now at Dominion Astrophysical
Astronomy). By comparing supernovae observed over the past Observatory) made a careful estimate. In preparing this article, I
two millenniums with supernova remnants of comparable age, did my own calculation, using somewhat different rules, and got
he concludes that a star blows up near the Sun (within 5 kilo- similar answers. So I combined both results in the table below.
parsecs [kpc] or 16,000 light-years) every 175 years, on aver- If this distribution is accurate, it implies that pretelescopic
age. By extrapolating this rate to the whole galaxy, Strom pre- observers logged only a third of the supernovae that exploded
dicts a supernova every 20 years or so. in our galaxy. Historians have pointed
On the other hand, a team from the out that a new star had to be really
Apparent Brightnesses of
University of Western Australia published bright, perhaps exceeding magnitude
Milky Way Supernovae
a paper this year that joins evidence from +1.5, to stand a good chance of being
10% will peak brighter than magnitude 3
extragalactic sightings, stars in our galaxy, noticed by ancient astronomers.
20% will peak between magnitudes 3 and +2
and the historical record of supernova The fact that no galactic supernova has
20% will peak between magnitudes +2 and +6
explosions within 4 to 5 kpc (13,000 to been recognized on 20th-century sky-
20% will peak between magnitudes +6 and +11
16,000 light-years) of the Sun. According patrol photographs seems to confirm the
30% will peak fainter than magnitude +11
to coinvestigator Ronald Burman, One robustness of the table. Combined with
R e p o rt i n g a n d Va l i d at i n g t h e N e a r by S u pe r n ova
36 August 1999 Sky & Telescope 1999 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.
Galactic center
1604
1006
185
Sun 1320
1680?
1572
1181
1054
the best-guess frequency of supernovae, it suggests that only Eight well-confirmed nearby supernovae are plotted on this birds-
three or four supernovae would have brightened enough to be eye depiction of the Milky Way. Two (in 185 and 1006) occurred in the
recorded on patrol plates. And even if a maverick image had Sagittarius arm of our galaxy and four (in 1054, 1181, 1572, and
been spotted, it would likely have been dismissed as a Kodak 1680?) in the Perseus arm. Where will the next one emerge? Sky &
comet or other defect. Telescope diagram; artwork courtesy Julian Baum.
Maybe those plates are worth checking again by someone
armed with modern radio, X-ray, and other ledgers of super-
nova suspects. As van den Bergh wrote: Very red novae that
exhibit a relatively slow rate of brightness decline are prime
supernova suspects.
Whats the chance that a supernova will jolt the neutrino
detectors in the coming year? Odds of about 1 in 30 would
probably satisfy Las Vegas bookmakers. The chance that the
stellar fireworks will actually be seen drops to about 1 in 70, in
my opinion. So, if you want instant gratification, you had bet-
ter look elsewhere. But what intrigues me is that a champagne
cork could pop tomorrow!
1999 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved. Sky & Telescope August 1999 37