Don’t stand too close to an exploding star.
Some stars go out with a whimper, but others go with a bang — and what a bang! Supernovae are ludicrously energetic explosions, so you wouldn't want to see one up close. Astronomers to do spot them, in surprisingly large numbers — though usually they only get to observe them after they've lit up. Recently, however, researchers managed to get loads of data about one supernova in a not-too-distant galaxy *before* it went boom, thanks to a lucky intervention by this podcasts favourite space telescope …
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
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Since you’re here … You might be interested in a new, sciencey podcast: Science, possibly — science-adjacent stories by Chris Stewart and James Lees.
Things we discuss in this episode:
Hubble’s had some trouble
A good article about SN 2020fqv
Type I and Type II supernovae (video)
Supernova naming conventions
Space telescopes: TESS and Hubble
The original Rosetta Stone