Where was I?
Oh yes, that's right: "Woohoo! This is a cool thing for science!" is something I would be saying if this were a science blog. I would talk about how close the supernova is, using analogies that would help you understand how something incredibly far away is practically next door on the scale of THE UNIVERSE. (It's so close the galaxy is a Messier object, M82, with a name, the "Cigar Galaxy.") But others are doing that. I'm more interested in how contemplating the scale of THE UNIVERSE can make us feel simultaneously very small and very important.
I mean, we, as human beings, are already an unimaginably small dot on the Earth which is incredibly tiny compared to our Sun, not to mention the vast emptiness of space that separates the Earth from the Sun, which, cosmologically speaking, is practically buzzing with debris and not empty at all... and of course, cosmologically speaking, the Sun doesn't even register as an infinitesimally small speck in a mediocre galaxy in the unfathomable hugeness of space. It takes light a mere 8 minutes to reach us from the Sun, but light from this new supernova has been traveling to us for 11.4 million years! And it is a nearby event! The star died 11.4 million years ago, and the supernova explosion marking its death happens on the scale of a month. And here we are to observe it, sitting on our planet in a nearby galaxy, focusing our prisms and mirrors on this awesome event, cozy with our blankets and hot chocolate (stay warm, USA) in the knowledge that our Sun won't die on us for at least another 5 billion years.
I might talk about how the news is making some of my colleagues as excited as kids in a candy shop. There is so much astrophysical data and in so many colors! (That is an Astronomy joke, by the way. Feel free to laugh.) And I would show some pretty pictures, if this were a science blog, for sure. Wait, I can still do that... hold on... there:
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| From Astronomy Picture of the Day; Image Credit & Copyright: Adam Block, Mt. Lemmon SkyCenter, U. Arizona |
If this were a science blog, I could talk about how it's so bright, and getting brighter still, that anyone with access to clear skies and small telescopes can see this new point of light for themselves. But others are doing that too. And I'd rather imagine what it might be like, looking through an eyepiece up into the sky at a dying star in another galaxy... sure, the image itself might not be spectacular, but knowing what it is brings so much more.
I have a small telescope, and I've seen Jupiter and its moons. But without that knowledge, all you can see is a smallish dot with a few smaller dots around it sort of along a straight line, and if you're lucky, the biggest smallish dot has some dark lines across it. The experience is less meaningful if you don't know that you're looking at another planet, which is very big and very far away. I don't mean knowing the names of Jupiter and its moons, or how far away they are, or any details like that, is important... but looking at Jupiter, or this new supernova, without knowing its place in the pattern is like seeing a puzzle piece without any picture on it - basically, meaningless. And that is the magic of learning, and of science - turning a bunch of pieces of a puzzle into a beautiful picture, or even an ugly picture when you get down to it, but a picture nonetheless of something you understand. I would even say that understanding by itself is beautiful, and that understanding something ugly turns it into something beautiful - not beautiful in the sense of aesthetically pleasing, but in a larger meaning - whole and right and beautiful. Of course, I can say all of that because this isn't a science blog.
If it were, I would talk about how this particular type of supernova was responsible for the discovery that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, and how this messes with our understanding of cosmology in a fundamental way. Actually, I might write about that one day... but this supernova is so close, it's unlikely to answer those fundamental questions.
What I would really talk about, if this were a science blog, is how this particular type of supernova is responsible for the creation of all heavy elements, without which life as we know it would not be possible. You may have heard that "we are made of star stuff" because of the creation of all elements heavier than Helium (and trace Lithium) in the nuclear furnaces of stellar cores. (Or you might have heard that "if you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the Universe.") But all elements heavier than iron (and most of the iron) can only be created in the special conditions of a stellar death - the massive energy of a star collapsing in on itself and exploding in a supernova. Of course, I would check all of my facts before saying things like that, if this were a science blog.
I would focus on the creation of heavy elements because this supernova is the perfect metaphor for the un-metaphorizable, the awe and the awesome, the "Tao" or "Brahman" or "whatever, none of that is real" or whatever you want to call it. It is creation and destruction at once: the creation of the possibility for life, as the elements in its ejecta travel out to one day find their way into new stars of their own - or possibly into the planets around that star and eventually the life on those planets; but also, it is the destruction of the possibility for life as the death of a life-giving star itself. In order for there to be life, there has to be death, in the heavens as it is on Earth.
Amen.
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