Supernova Timelapse Video: Star's Explosion Filmed Over 58 Years (VIDEO)

25/01/2013 08:47

More than 1400 years ago the star GK Persei exploded in a dramatic and massive supernova which - at the time - was the largest on record.

And, in 1901, light from that explosion finally hit the Earth.

Supernovas occur when suitably massive stars run out of hydrogen fuel and collapses into itself, throwing off massive amounts of radiation and energy as it does.

These explosions take a short time in the lifespan of the universe to play out, but to us can last for centuries.

GK Persie's magnitude 0.2 supernova has now been occuring for 112 years, and scientists have been taking decent pictures for 58 years - even as the material from its core still rushes towards us at 1,000 kilometres a second, or 1,000 times faster than a rifle bullet.

Now images from the Isaac Newton Telescope and the Nordic Optical Telescope have been stiched together into a single video, showing how the supernova happened.

It's also been used to produce a 3D representation of the event 1,300 light years away,. allowing researchers new ways to study it.

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