Video up. I am really trying to break out of the mould of a typical science vlogger with this one. I try to channel my inner Brian Cox.

      Like, Comment and Subscribe but most importantly relax and enjoy the video. Cheers.

<-Video Transcript->

       Bonjour Tout le monde, c'est moi l'astronome fou SonOfTerra92 and we are here under another starry night in Malaysia for some stargazing. We are right now watching the death of a star, an event known as a Supernova in the direction of M82.


      It is the 3^rd of February 2014 and we are camped under the constellation Ursa Major translated as the Great Bear but more popularly known as the big dipper. It's the one you learn in elementary school as the giant scoop in the sky.

Yeah, that one.

      We are witnessing a very special and exciting astronomical event in the Galaxy Messier 82. A Type 1a supernova. The closest one to Earth detected in the last 150 years.

      Type 1a supernovas happen in binary star systems, when two stars orbit each other in a gravitational dance and one of the stars happens to be a White Dwarf star, the remnant of a star that has already completed its normal main sequence life cycle. The white dwarf star indulges in a bit of stellar vampirism by accreting mass from its partner and exploding at a critical point.

      What makes Type 1a supernovas of particular interest is that they always happen with a consistent brightness. This allows curious human beings on planet Earth to use them as a form of Universal Yard Stick to measure the immense distances in the Cosmos.

      Here's how it works.
 

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       By comparing the much dimmer observed brightness with the known actual brightness of the Type 1a supernova, we can gauge the distance from our position as observers on Earth to the far flung explosive event. We do this through the inverse square law for light.

      Say you had a series of candles of the same brightness placed at equal distances from each other and you held the first candle in the series. The next candle would appear one-4th the brightness of the one in your hand and the one after that would be one-9th the brightness.

We use standard candles to find the distances to other Galaxies.

      By knowing the apparent dimness of the candle we can find the distance to other candles.

      Astronomers use Type 1a supernova's as the Standard Candle for measuring very far distances in the Universe and with them we've been able to figure out our place in an ever expanding Universe.

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        Type 1a Supernovae excite astronomers because of their scientific significance. They are a rare opportunity to study the Universe in one of its most violent moments. To experience one in a single human life-time is to me a great privilege.

Great Chaos and Great Beauty at the same time.

      But the funny thing is that when I say we are right now observing a Type 1a in M82, the reality is that this rare event actually happened 12 million years ago. 

      Wow, Talk about being late to the party.

      Messier 82 sits just outside the Local Group, a group of 54 galaxies within a 10 million light year diameter in space. Messier 82 is 12 million light-years away. Cosmologically it's our next door neighbour. The light released by SN 2014J (What the astronomers are calling it for now. I call it Darlene) left M82 at a time when there were no humans on Earth. After crossing the vast intervening distance between galaxies the light that originally left 12 million years ago has finally arrived at out doorstep ending its journey in our telescopes, in your eyes and in mines. Some of it in the ground never to be observed by human eyes.

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       Tuning into these events really makes you wonder about just how big the universe is on a scale of distance and time and how like a life raft adrift at sea our planet is adrift in a Cosmic Ocean.

       Our planet in its ordinariness is lost in a Universe of the Extraordinary. What amazes me even more is that on that planet of the mundane exists living things that can put the supernova in their minds and not have it suffer from a similarly violent explosive reaction which once you think about it is what should happen.

And its getting more extraordinary with each passing day.

       How is it that can we understand these things and not go absolutely bananas?

       I think it is because in the end we have to. If not for the imaginative and romantic purpose for some human to stand under a field of stars and talk about some distant event that happend a long time ago in a galaxy far far away or if not for the simple pleasure of watching the sky at night and feeling alive while you are doing it. Some day the ongoing journey of the human race will take us outwards into that Universe of the Extraordinary. A Universe that we are now beginning to understand.

      And after that, more than any other time ever before we will truly be alive as citizens of the Cosmos.

      My name is SonOfTerra92, and this has been another Science Epic Videolog.