This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope features the spectacular galaxy NGC 2442, nicknamed the Meathook galaxy owing to its extremely asymmetrical and irregular shape.
This galaxy was host to a supernova explosion spotted in March 2015, known as SN 2015F, that was created by a white dwarf star. The white dwarf was part of a binary star system and siphoned mass from its companion, eventually becoming too greedy and taking on more than it could handle. This unbalanced the star and triggered runaway nuclear fusion that eventually led to an intensely violent supernova explosion. The supernova shone brightly for quite some time and was easily visible from Earth through even a small telescope until months later.
Text credit: ESA (European Space Agency)
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, S. Smartt et al.Last Updated: Aug. 21, 2020Editor: Rob Garner
What more proof do you need than that. Definitely caused by global warming.
Great image.
It’s amazing to me in all these images just how many distant galaxies you can see. Even in the low resolution image on the webpage I can see at least 6 and there’s probably dozens/hundreds more. And that’s just the spiral galaxies like our own. We are not alone!
Speaking of not alone, what do we, here, think of the images taken by the Santilli telescope?
Download the 55mb tif file and you can see much more, including quite a few very faint ones.
Ok Charles, you got me on this one (I’m not an astrophysicist).
What you’re describing is a Type I super nova (white dwarf accretes material from a companion star until a some critical threshold is crossed and the sucker blows up with a (supposedly) consistent) brightness.
I’m not being critical (don’t have enough understanding of this phenomena), but your text can easily be read as implying this was an especially violent Type I Super Nova explosion. Due to the gradual accretion process, aren’t all Type I Super Nova explosions more or less equal?
Type II Super Nova is a different animal all together.
Type one ‘standard candle’ because the pre supernova mass and atomic composition (fusion stopped at carbon) is so well known. I guest posted on this a few months ago in Essay Quantum musings.
First time I’ve heard of a dwarf going supernova.
It’s not just the dwarf.
My (highly suspect) understanding is Type I Super Nova involves a white dwarf (think mass of the sun; size of the earth) with a hydrogen-rich companion star. The white dwarf is incredibly dense so its fusion reactions create heavier elements than He (like O & C).
Over a period of time, due to the differences in gravitational fields, the white dwarf accretes (steals) matter from the companion star. At some critical point, enough hydrogen fuel is falling in and being compressed by the dwarf’s gravity, that some critical threshold is crossed and the system goes Super Nova.
See my rather more complex explanation previously posted as ‘Some random quantum thoughts’ June 2020. Been there, done that. Already this year.
Thanks, Rud.
This stuff is fascinating but very complex to us financial weenies.
First time I’ve heard of a dwarf going supernova.
Different from a giant star collapsing, Type I supernovae is a carbon-oxygen fusion bomb of a white dwarf reaching 1.4 solar masses from accretion from a companion star.
Update: the Meathook Galaxy has been renamed the Vegetarian Swoosh Galaxy by NASA’s PC Division. Evidently the European Space Agency hasn’t gotten the memo yet.
…… plus it was a privileged star of short stature.
So that’s why it was disappeared?
Exactly, that and the fact that it became gravitationally-challenged.
See the problem is that it’s no longer possible to reliably satirize NASA. Is this true? I wouldn’t doubt it for a minute.
Just imagine what NASA could be doing under the Harris Administration next year!
First thing is make NASA rename black holes as holes of color (even tho they are holes of absolutely NO color).
Black is no color (absence of color).
Supernovae are asshoe…
NGC 2442 is 50 million light years away, and about 75,000 light years in diameter
In between lots of nothing space is a violent place.
Very picturesque galaxy & the prominent arm. Dust spirals all the way down to the center supermassive black hole.