Abstract
A supernova close enough to the Earth is a spectacular event: it can appear as a “new star” as luminous as Venus, or even more, visible for several days. The rate of Galactic supernovae is expected to be of about one in 30 years, with a fraction visible to the naked eye; however in all the history of human civilization only seven supernovae in the Milky Way have been reported, the last two (1572 and 1604) during Galilei’s life. The supernova of 1604, today called Kepler’s Supernova, was observed by Galilei, Kepler and other astronomers in Europe, Korea, China, Arabia. Like the supernova SN1572, today called Tycho’s supernova, it has been the subject of extensive studies, and inspired observational measurements and philosophical considerations on the nature of the heavens. The remnant of SN1604 has been indicated by recent X- and gamma-ray data to be a likely site of cosmic ray acceleration. The first recorded data of optical observations, together with new data, can still tell us a lot about the early evolution of this supernova.
Highlights
Stars and binary stellar systems massive enough end their lives in collapses releasing a large amount of energy; these phenomena are called “supernovae”
In October 1604, when the supernova appeared in the sky, Galileo Galilei (15 February 1564–8 January 1642) was teaching Mathematics and Physics at the University of Padua, and for the two-year period 1604–1605 he had chosen the motion of the planets as the subject of his lectures
By comparing with templates coming from other supernovae (Figure 7), Ruiz-Lapuente concluded that that this event looks like a normal supernova Ia, and obtained an estimate d = (5.0 ± 0.7) kpc for the distance to the explosion
Summary
Stars and binary stellar systems massive enough end their lives in collapses releasing a large amount of energy; these phenomena are called “supernovae”. Towards the end of November/beginning of December 1604, Galilei gave three public lectures, of which only a few fragments of his preparatory notes remain today [4] He was asked several times to publish what he had exhibited in those three public lectures, Galilei continued to postpone, waiting to write a larger work, because he felt that his lessons were not innovative and not worthy of being read or published, as they focused almost exclusively on proving, through the parallax method, that the “new star” was located beyond the Moon. 113 [6], dated January 1605, Galilei wrote to the Nobleman Onofrio Castelli that he thought he had reached a conclusion without contradictions, something more than mere speculation in a complete description of the new star: its position, motion, composition and creation He had decided to present his thought, even though he was well aware of the risk of censorship that he would have faced.
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