Galaxy Zoo Talk

The supernova in the galaxy

  • planetaryscience by planetaryscience

    I figure this deserves some attention here. I'd brought it up on the deceased galaxy zoo forum twice but to no avail. This object is a clear yellow star(?) apparently superimposed upon a disturbed galaxy. The most interesting thing, however, is a ring of ionized material around the star. A search on NED reveals that only 0.72 arcseconds away is the reported location of supernova PTF09dah. Reportedly it was observed as a type IIb sypernova at a redshift of 0.0238, the same as the observed galaxy.

    The SDSS image was taken on October 17th, 2009. DSS images don't reveal any such hint of a yellow star. It's reportedly from the collapse of a star with a low-mass companion. I don't know the exact math, but an object like this would have to be at a redshift outside of our own galaxy to not be overwhelmingly bright. However the supernova still emits a definite ring of material around it.

    I believe this is an interesting object worthy of more study, but to know if this is the supernova for sure or not, we need to know when the supernova happened, which appears to be quite hard to find.

    Posted

  • ElisabethB by ElisabethB moderator

    It is mentioned in this paper : http://snzoo.s3.amazonaws.com/Smith_et_al.pdf 😄

    And it appears it was discovered in October.

    Posted