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TL;DR. He is the first human in history to witness the first hour of a supernova being created. Astronomers had theorized what it would looked like and his ph
by stevenwoo 9y ago
TL;DR. He is the first human in history to witness the first hour of a supernova being created. Astronomers had theorized what it would looked like and his photographs confirm it and his notification allowed astronomers to study the supernova early hours in depth as never before.
- tzs 9y agoI'm confused by this. There have been several supernovas throughout history that were bright enough to be seen without instruments, including some ones in 1006 and 1054 that were quite a bit brighter than Venus, and ones in 1572 and 1604 that were brighter than Jupiter. How do we know no human happened to be watching during the first hour of one of these?
- ramses0 9y ago"Observed" ... many people have seen the moon, but few people have "observed" it. ie: gathered evidence, etc. I may see a fly across the room, but I'm not really "observing" it in any meaningful way unless I'm prepared, with proper sensors, cameras, etc. recording what's going on so that other people can learn from it.
- iamleppert 9y agoYour question is fallacious. The point is he is the first known person to have witnessed it in known history, the odds of such were calculated to be 1 in 10 million.