Taking Another Look at a Historical Supernova
Submitted by chandra on Sun, 2013-03-17 21:09We are delighted to welcome Mary Burkey as a guest blogger today. Mary is first author of a paper, describing the trigger mechanism for the Kepler supernova, that is the subject of our latest press release. She grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina and is in her last semester at North Carolina State University. When she graduates in May, she will have Bachelors degrees in Physics, Chemistry, and Applied Mathematics. After commencement, Mary will attend one of the graduate schools she is currently exploring and plans to obtain a PhD in Physics.
When people all over the world looked up into the night sky 409 years ago and saw a new star, they immediately began studying it. However, no one studied this new celestial object more closely than Johannes Kepler. Over several years, he synthesized his observations into a historical book, De Stella Nova, which later justified naming the star “Kepler’s supernova.”