Supernova

On February 23, 1987, a truly cosmic event occurred--or more exactly was found to have occurred. Telescopes in New Zealand and Chile observed what was called the "brightest and closest" supernova to earth since "Kepler's supernova" in 1604 (Rensberger A7; Cowen 120). This was front-page news because telescopes had witnessed the event (marked by uncommon brightness), the historic proximity of the event to earth, and the fact that the initial observation occurred in the Southern hemisphere. What came to be called Supernova 1987 A (SNV 1987A) has been under observation ever since, not only in Chile and New Zealand but in outer space itself. As striking as SNV 1987A was, it was not unique in astronomy history. In the Northern hemisphere in 1054, Chinese astronomers described a "guest star" in Taurus, and Anasazi in the American Southwest created a pictograph of the same star, which was eventually to be identified as the Crab Supernova, the progenitor of the still observable Crab Nebula. In 1572 and 1606, Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler, respectively, m

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he sun--vis-a-vis explosive activity (whether nuclear or not) on earth is suggested by the fact that by definition a supernova creates an explosion that is millions of times brighter than the sun, the star physically closest to earth. In this regard, Chevalier (1374) cites the "high intrinsic luminosity (about a billion times that of the sun for tens of days)" of SNV 1987A. One reason the supernovae that have been discovered are not visible to the naked eyes is that their physical location is in galaxies that are tens of millions of light years away from earth (Chevalier 1374). What is actually observed about the supernova are properties associated with any explosion--the creation of wind, dust clouds, chemical reactions, and so on. However, it is misleading to conceptualize the observation as something as visible as, say, the explosion of a building. Telescopes, as well as electromagnetic spectrum instrumentation, which measures wavelengths of light, and which identifies the "spectral signatures" of elemental/chemical behavior in the supernova environment (Gehrz, et al. 671; also Sagan 93), are essential. In particular, the Hubble Telescope made possible the discovery of a variety of rings around SNV 1987A, which appear to be co
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2259
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)

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