It’s Been Three Years Since We’ve Had a Supernova This Close

[Rick]

It's Been Three Years Since We've Had a Supernova This Close

A supernova is one of the most impressive astronomical events anyone can possibly witness. Characterized by a massive explosion that takes place during the final stages of a massive star's life (after billions of years of evolution), this sort of event is understandably quite rare. In fact, within the Milky Way Galaxy, a supernova event is likely to happen just once a century.

But within the Fireworks Galaxy (aka. the spiral galaxy NGC 6946), which is located 22 million light years from Earth and has half as many stars as our galaxy, supernovae are about ten times more frequent. On May 13th, while examining this galaxy from his home in Utah, amateur astronomer Patrick Wiggins spotted what was later confirmed to be a Type II supernova.

More: https://www.universetoday.com/135600/three-years-since-weve-supernova-close/

EPOD: http://epod.usra.edu/blog/2017/05/supernova-sn-2017.html