The Star That Exploded in 1987
In 1987, an astronomer developing a photograph in Chile saw a bright new star that hadn't been there the night before. It was a star exploding.
What was reported
On 24 February 1987, the Canadian astronomer Ian Shelton, working at Las Campanas Observatory in Chile, developed a photographic plate of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small galaxy near our own. He noticed a bright spot that wasn't on earlier plates. He went outside and saw it with his own eyes.
It was a supernova, the explosion of a giant star, about 168,000 light years away. It was the first supernova visible with the naked eye since 1604.
Explanations offered
Hours before the light arrived, underground detectors in Japan and the United States picked up a burst of neutrinos, ghostly particles from the collapsing heart of the star, confirming how such stars die. Telescopes still watch the expanding rings of glowing gas.
- When
- 24 February 1987
- Where
- Las Campanas Observatory, Atacama, Chile
- Witnesses
- Ian Shelton, then astronomers and detectors around the world
- Status
- Confirmed
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.
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