Ah, the inaugural posting. It's always so difficult to come up with a way to start off a blog. In many ways the first post can set the tone of blog for many posts to come. So what do I have planned for this cozy little corner of my virtual world? The goals for this blog are outlined in the About page, but for the sake of redundancy, I'll review them here.
I'm a junior at Penn State University. I'm a fresh transfer student coming in from a local community college, so it's somewhat of a big transition for me. My major right now is Geoscience, but that's simply a placeholder until I earn enough credits to switch to my desired major which is Astronomy and Astrophysics. This blog is, in part, a project to document my journey as a student through the world of academia as I start my scientific career and begin the transition from undergrad to grad student.
The other mission of this blog is to post about topics in astronomy, space science, and space exploration which I find interesting or relevant. This can be anything from a recently discovered exoplanet to discussions musing about why Titan's methane seas are mysteriously flat and waveless. So with that in mind, let's jump right into it, shall we?
A nova has recently gone off near the constellation of Delphinus. The nova was discovered by Japanese amateur astronomer Koichi Itagaka on the night of August 14th, using a 7-inch reflector telescope. A few hours after its discovery, the nova was confirmed at magnitude 6.8, which is just visible to the naked eye under a dark sky. You'd have better luck seeing it clearly in binoculars or a small telescope. Unlike a supernova, where a massive star destroys itself in a massive explosion, novae occur in binary systems where one component is a small but massive white dwarf star siphoning material away from it's partner - usually a giant star, but it doesn't have to be - forming a disc of matter around itself. As this stolen gas falls onto the surface of the white dwarf, it gets compressed due to the dead star's high gravity. Once all that hydrogen reaches 20 million K, it undergoes fusion and creates a violent nuclear explosion on the white dwarf's surface, which can be seen from a great distance away. The white dwarf survives this explosion, and can often experience several novae as it collects more matter from its partner star.
I'm a junior at Penn State University. I'm a fresh transfer student coming in from a local community college, so it's somewhat of a big transition for me. My major right now is Geoscience, but that's simply a placeholder until I earn enough credits to switch to my desired major which is Astronomy and Astrophysics. This blog is, in part, a project to document my journey as a student through the world of academia as I start my scientific career and begin the transition from undergrad to grad student.
The other mission of this blog is to post about topics in astronomy, space science, and space exploration which I find interesting or relevant. This can be anything from a recently discovered exoplanet to discussions musing about why Titan's methane seas are mysteriously flat and waveless. So with that in mind, let's jump right into it, shall we?
A nova has recently gone off near the constellation of Delphinus. The nova was discovered by Japanese amateur astronomer Koichi Itagaka on the night of August 14th, using a 7-inch reflector telescope. A few hours after its discovery, the nova was confirmed at magnitude 6.8, which is just visible to the naked eye under a dark sky. You'd have better luck seeing it clearly in binoculars or a small telescope. Unlike a supernova, where a massive star destroys itself in a massive explosion, novae occur in binary systems where one component is a small but massive white dwarf star siphoning material away from it's partner - usually a giant star, but it doesn't have to be - forming a disc of matter around itself. As this stolen gas falls onto the surface of the white dwarf, it gets compressed due to the dead star's high gravity. Once all that hydrogen reaches 20 million K, it undergoes fusion and creates a violent nuclear explosion on the white dwarf's surface, which can be seen from a great distance away. The white dwarf survives this explosion, and can often experience several novae as it collects more matter from its partner star.
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| Animation of Nova Delphini 2013, from the Remanzacco Observatory Blog. |
The
event is now being referred to as Nova Delphini 2013. On August 16th,
Nova Delphini 2013 reached a peak brightness of 4.3 and has been
rapidly declining since, at a rate of almost 1 magnitude per day. Novae
are classified by the amount of time it takes for them to dim. There
are four subtypes; Fast (NA), Slow (NB), Very Slow (NC), and
Recurrent (NR). Fast novae, such as this one, typically fall rapidly
in brightness over a period of days, falling to 1/16th
maximum brightness in 100 days or less. The slowest novae can last over a
decade, which makes them quite unusual. Recurrent novae experience periodic outbursts of brightness, typically
separated by many decades. It is not yet known if Nova Delphini 2013 will erupt again, but we will no doubt be keeping an eye on this region of the sky for the next few decades.
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