633Some Astronomers Believe the Christmas Star Was a Nova or Supernova
posted on November 25th, 2009
Some astronomers believe that the Christmas Star, the Star of Bethlehem, was a nova or supernova outburst: a new star blazes forth where none had ever been envisioned and leaves no trace for us to find in the future. Although their names involve a new creation, these astonishing objects are in reality failing stars, although they are novel (albeit temporary) additions to the nighttime sky. The appearance of a nova is episodic a really bright one becomes viewable perhaps once every 25 or 30 years. Going on this idea, we actually should be due for a bright naked-eye nova at well-nigh anytime now, since the most recent one was visible back in 1975 (not far from the colorful star Deneb in the constellation Cygnus). Most bright novae suddenly and accidentally flare into prominence literally overnight, diverting the instant attention of sky-conscious people. But after several days or weeks of such brightness, it gradually withers back to obscurity. Even more brilliant but much less common are supernovae; stars that suddenly disentegrate themselves completely apart, briefly producing an incredible energy output equivalent to the combined light of an entire galaxy of stars. At the height of its blowup, a supernova can shine with a brilliance capable of dropping shadows and can even be seen in broad daylight truly a heavenly announcement worthy of the birth of a king. In our Milky Way galaxy, the erstwhile thousand years, there have been four stunning supernovae, in 1006, 1054, 1572 and 1604. Understandably, we are long in the tooth for another, though the stars don’t necessarily play by any odds we might compute. A newfound hypothesis states that the star of Bethlehem was a supernova or hypernova occurring in the nearby Andromeda Galaxy. Although supernovae have been noticed in Andromeda, it is extraordinarily difficult to recognzie a supernova remnant in another galaxy, let alone receive an dead-on date of when it occurred. Although a nova or supernova is the most passable explanation for the Star, there is a critical problem with it, in that there doesn’t seem to be any explicit record of a bright nova appearing in the sky during the time that biblical historians trust the Magi made their journey.