A Star Went Supernova in 1987. Where Is It Now?

A Star Went Supernova in 1987. Where Is It Now?(nytimes.com)

31 points by SREinSF 5 years ago | 3 comments

sradman 5 years ago |

The paper NS 1987A in SN 1987A [1] claims that Super Nova SN 1987A most likely created a Neutron Star (NS 1987A):

> The suspected detection stems from an excess of infrared emission from a dust blob near the compact object’s predicted position.

[1] https://arxiv.org/pdf/2004.06078.pdf

johnr2 5 years ago |

> A Star Went Supernova in 1987

It didn't go supernova in 1987. It happened around 168,000 years before that, but it took the light from the event that long to reach us. A better title might be "A supernova was observed in 1987".

perl4ever 5 years ago | |

I find this particular pedantry annoying ever since I came across the idea that anything on our light cone is "now".

I have a philosophical distaste for defining reality as something we can never experience - the condition of anything at a distance.