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So you're into sci fi? But what about sci fact? Sometimes fact is stranger than fiction...

Each month our very own Voyager Science Queen* will bring you interesting, quirky and downright bizarre tasty morsels from the world of science. And its all completely, totally, 100% true!

Science Page September 2011

Going out with a Bang!

If you are even the slightest bit interested in astronomy, the news about SN 2011fe must make you excited. What is SN 2011fe? Well, it is just the newest supernova to be detected by the team at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

This supernova is special for a couple of reasons. It was detected early, so that most of the process of the explosion can be recorded. It is 21million lightyears away in the Pinwheel Galaxy, designated as Messier 101 or NGC 5457,which makes it relatively close to us in astronomical distances. The Pinwheel Galaxy is located in the constellation Ursa Major, the Great Bear, and is one of the best known galaxies, thanks to studies done via the Hubble Telescope. This makes studying the supernova relatively easy.

Because of its position, we won’t be seeing the glow of SN 2011fe in the Southern hemisphere, which is a shame. However, the last time the Earth was treated to the spectacle of a visible supernova, it was only able to be seen from the Southern hemisphere. (Mind you, that was 25 years ago.) Fair’s fair.

Peter Nugent, the senior scientist on the team that discovered the supernova, was quoted saying, “Our best guess is it will continue to brighten until sometime in the first week or second week of September. But that's if it's a normal supernova. We think it's normal, but we're not sure because we've never seen one this early." If any of the readers of the Science Page are in the Northern hemisphere at this time, you might be able to see the supernova with good binoculars or a small telescope. Look to the north of the handle of the Big Dipper, with Nugent suggesting the best viewing time is just after sunset.

The additional information about supernovas will give us a better picture of the cycle ofthese phenomena.

For those who don’t know, a supernova is the death throes of an exploding star. Not every star can create a supernova; only a star with a mass much larger than the sun has the energy to explode with such force. The explosion can be luminous enough to outshine a galaxy for the space of days – sometimes weeks. What remains might be a neutron star or a black hole, in a tenuous shawl of expanding gases.

*The Voyager Science Queen is also known as Lynne Lumsden Green

So, who is this woman who attempts to entertain us with Science?

Lynne Lumsden Green lives on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland, and attends the University of the Sunshine Coast. Ever the perpetual student, she is adding a B.A. in Creative Writing to her B.SC. in Zoology (Jennifer Fallon is her role model). As one of the founding members of Scriber Space, the site for USC creative writers, she hopes to create a writing community as lively and as close as the Voyager writing community. She spends her non-study hours volunteering for writing-related events, writing, reading, and – oh yes – looking after her family. She is still passionately interested in anything and everything, and enjoys the opportunity to share this passion via the Science Page. Terry Pratchett, Isaac Asimov, Neil Gaiman, and all the Voyager authors are her favourite people on the planet...and one of her goals is to meet all of those authors, well, at least those authors still in the land of the living. Recently, her own writing efforts have been meeting with better success. She is putting this down to her excellent lecturers and persistence, and to the fact that you can eat chocolate while typing.

Read previous Sci-Facts

Looking for more scientific oddities? Have you checked out Dr Steven Juan's website? He is, quite literally, the wizard of odds!