As you can see from the comment below some people do not understand American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) light curves. It is important that you understand light curves as I will be posting these light curves from time to time. This light curve can be confusing to some people because it shows the brightness of the nova in different colors of light. In this case visual (naked eye), red, and blue. The horizontal axis shows time from left to right. It looks like the first visual observation was made not long after midnight on January 21. The vertical axis shows magnitude (brightness) of the nova, in this case SN 2014j. Astronomers use colors to tell something about the conditions of the environment where the supernova occurred. Note that the blue light from the nova is fainter (mag. 13.0) than the red light which is much brighter (mag. 11.3). Dust blocks short wave length blue light. Long wave length red light will not be blocked by dust. That is why sunsets on earth are red. The greater thickness of the atmosphere that sunlight goes through when the sun is low in the sky scatters the blue light. In fact the galaxy that the supernova occurred in, M. 81, is a VERY DUSTY galaxy. At the time of the supernova (12 million years ago!) M. 81 was undergoing a massive burst of star formation. The stellar winds were so strong from all the young stars that dust was being blown out of the galaxy at the north and south poles of the galaxy. See the picture of this galaxy in a post below.
Posted on: Sun, 02 Feb 2014 20:03:20 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015