The skies may seem unchanging, but that’s not really the case. If you have a keen eye and knowledge of the heavens, you see quite a bit of (dare I say it?) evolution.
Case in point: in the constellation of Scorpius (not Scorpio, please), there is a bright nova going on right now. If you’re not familiar with the constellation you wouldn’t notice it, but to those who peruse the skies it sticks out like, well, like a star that’s had a massive explosive event!
Ian Musgrave has the observing details. At magnitude 3.7 or so it’s not glaringly obvious, but it’s the brightest of its kind seen in quite some time. Here’s a map with the position marked (there is nothing on the map at the nova’s spot because my software doesn’t have the nova on it, of course):
This map is for my location at about 6:00 a.m., so YMMV. You can find online sky maps at Your Sky or Heavens Above. But if you go out early in the morning, you’ll see Jupiter blazing away (I marked it on the map above as well), and the nova is a few degrees south of it. It’s very near the bright star Epsilon Scorpii in the middle of the scorpion’s body.
A nova happens when a white dwarf — the very dense remnant of a star like the Sun after it blows off its outer layers, leaving its core exposed to space — is in a binary system, that is, orbiting another normal star. The physics is complex, but matter form the normal star can be drawn off and land on the white dwarf. It piles up, and eventually gets so hot and compressed it explodes like a nuclear bomb. The flash is intense, and the glow can last for weeks.
White dwarfs are usually very faint, and the flash sudden, so what we see on Earth is a relatively blank patch of sky suddenly get bright over the course of hours. It can release thousands or even hundreds of thousands the Sun’s energy output, and last for days. Distance may dim the light, but not the knowledge of what we are seeing.
So if you rise early (or bed late) in the next few days, cast your eyes to the scorpion, and think about what fires lie in its heart.
February 17th, 2007 at 11:13 am
bad link to Ian Musgrave’s site.
February 17th, 2007 at 11:30 am
Try http://astroblogger.blogspot.com/ for the bad Musgrave link.
February 17th, 2007 at 12:02 pm
Dagnabbit! This link thing is getting very frustrating. Something is weird with my mouse I think. Cutting and pasting is getting more and more difficult. Anyway, fixed, and thanks for letting me know.
February 17th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
I think this nova’s going to be too low in the sky for me to see it over all the city clutter. Too bad!
February 17th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
A missing tidbit from Musgrave’s (and BA) site: how far away is this thing?
February 17th, 2007 at 5:11 pm
Mark Said:
Short Answer: We don’t know as yet. There is nothing in the current AAVSO alert or website to indicate a distance. I saw it this morning and got an image. It looks to be about mag 4.2 to me at the moment. The linked post also has links to the AAVSO most recent observations, and the Ice in Space thread wih other images. The Southern Hemisphere map is http://astroblogger.blogspot.com/2007/02/new-unaided-eye-nova-in-scorpius.html
Summary: Awesome, not as awesome as McNaught, but seeing a stellar nuclear explosion with your won eyes is rather groovy.
February 17th, 2007 at 5:54 pm
Awesome! Too bad we’re clouded in.
February 17th, 2007 at 6:04 pm
[...] Thanks Ian over at Astroblogg for the heads up, check out his site and the Bad Astronomy Blog for more details. Phil has a finders chart for the Northern Hemisphere. [...]
February 18th, 2007 at 1:53 am
This is really cool. Will HST zoom in on this?
February 18th, 2007 at 6:00 am
[...] In het sterrenbeeld Schorpioen is een nova verschenen, die momenteel ongeveer van magnitude 4 is! Probleem is alleen dat hij zeer laag in het zuid-zuidoosten te vinden is en je wel erg dicht tegen de horizon moet kijken om ‘m te kunnen zien. En dat allemaal ’s morgens tegen de schemering aan. De coördinaten zijn: R.A. = 16h 57m 41.26s en Decl. = -32o 20′ 35.6″ (epoch 2000.0). Hij moet samen met Antares en Jupiter een driehoek vormen en een stukje ten westen van Epsilon Scorpius. Op het kaartje Schorpioen om 06.30 uur ’s ochtend en de pijl geeft Epsilon Scorpius aan. Bron: Ian Musgrave’s Astroblog en Bad Astronomy Blog. [...]
February 18th, 2007 at 11:14 am
Ah, Jupiter, big, bright and fat. My kinda planet. I should be able to see it and the nova from Red Top Mountain tonight at work. Thanks for the thumbs up, BA.
Gary 7
February 19th, 2007 at 8:52 am
Gee…I think I saw it…I also think I need a new scope! At least I got a nice view of Jupiter here in New Zealand.
February 19th, 2007 at 12:05 pm
OK, cool. Please excuse my ignorance…but aren’t there other events that can make a star’s brightness increase in the same way? How do we know that it’s a white dwarf swallowing stuff from another star?
February 19th, 2007 at 11:56 pm
I think the answer to the question above is spectra -the Nova has a certain emission light spectra (Q? N?) that gives away whats happened as opposed to normal stellar spectra.
Thanks BA for this -I’ve forwarded the thread link on to some friends as breaking news the other day.
Scorpius rises at 2 am~ish Adelaide (Australia) time .. I waited up and there was too much cloud cover anyway. Sigh.
Still I’ll try again another night …
February 20th, 2007 at 12:05 am
NB. Other events :
-Supernova of various sorts – type I involving white dwarfs being pushed over the 1.4 solar mass limit for white dwarf matter
-Dwraf nova similarbutsmallerscale outburts,
- Other forms of varriability.
-Microlensing – a passing object magnifies the stars light making it seem much brighter -Used to find the OGLE -numbers small mass exoplanet recently.
As noted I’m guessing the spectra from the star’s light reveals that its a nova rather than a similar event …
February 20th, 2007 at 9:28 am
I remember hiking in the Grand Canyon as a child, back when I lived at Lowell Observatory and all my friends’ parents were astronomers. Sittin’ around the campfire, one of them looks up and says, “Hey! Nova!” I never learned the sky well enough to do that, sigh. Well, maybe in Orion or Cassiopeia, but mostly they were just a bunch of points, and I needed a star chart to find anything. What a waste of Flagstaff skies.
February 22nd, 2007 at 9:17 am
Hi all
This nova, as well as a new one just 3deg away, is making it well worth getting up early in the morning
A photo showing both novae’s position, and various updates, is at
http://www.psychohistorian.org/astronomy/news/20070222-v1281-scorpii.html
Regards,
Auke
April 9th, 2007 at 1:08 am
Hi
The time was 8:45pm NZ, looking up into the heavens and I saw a white flash like from a camera flash, about the size of the largest star, I have seen many shooting stars but never something like this, any ideas? Very clear sky defiantly not lightning or plans.
Vince