The Last Exploding Star That Was Visible To The Naked Eye
Could we see a star explode with our own eyes? It is possible
In 1604, the light from a nearby exploding star finally made its way to Earth. The result was a blotch of light that appeared in the sky and remained in place for over eighteen months. At night, the area glowed like a bruise on the firmament and it was so bright that it was even visible during the day at its brightest. It was the most prominent example of a supernova ever witnessed by the naked eye on Earth.
The star did not explode in 1604, it likely exploded sometime around 18,000BCE when humans were still stuck deep within the last ice age. The star was 20,000 lightyears away and it took that long for the evidence of its demise to reach the Earth.
And it was well worth the wait.
An unmatched spectacle
The supernova would become to be known as Kepler’s Star or Kepler’s Supernova (the term supernova did not come into the lexicon until much later) and it was observed by skywatchers the world over. Evidence of the supernova appears in Chinese, European, and Middle Eastern records. It was a hard feature to miss.
The astronomer Johannes Kepler kept detailed records of the supernova which is why it was eventually named after him. Kepler’s contributions to the laws of planetary motion are still studied in schools today.
The supernova had an apparent magnitude of -2.5 which made it brighter than all of the stars in the night sky save for the sun. Only Venus and Jupiter appeared brighter than the supernova at the time. The size of the image and the type of light it gave off also made it able to be seen during the day for three full weeks during October.
It is a chance that few people in human history ever had and it is the last supernova to be visible by humans on the ground.
An exploding star
Supernovas are the result of stars that have reached the end of their lives. Certain types of stars go out with a bang…
