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Seeing a star explode in the sky is something that not all humans will see in their lifetime. Sometimes, a star explodes so bright that it can be seen even during the day but sometimes it explodes just bright enough to be seen with the naked eye. One such Nova explosion occurred last July 5 2007 but sadly no-one noticed it. The star, now called V598 Puppis which can be found in the constellation Puppis is a white-dwarf star that gathered enough gas to cause an explosion.

It took three months before scientists noticed the explosion but this time the star was already fading. What they saw through the XMM Newton telescope was an unusual X-ray burst that wasn’t in any cosmic X-ray catalog. They worked quickly to check what was causing it and eventually pinned it down to a star known only as USNO-A2.0 0450-03360039. They eventually agreed that it was a Nova explosion and so started working on the tons of data collected by another telescope, the 6.5-meter Magellan-Clay telescope, and found that the star shined 600 times brighter than normal previously.

It “sucks” to know that such an event occurred in our lifetime without us actually seeing it. I just hope I come to see another such even before I die.

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I’ve just read this over at Livescience.com and I found it to be quite interesting. The Garra Rufa fish also known as Doctor Fish or Nibble Fish is fast becoming a staple in foot spas worldwide especially in Turkey and in some Asian countries. I’ve yet to see one here in the Philippines though. I’m sure there’s a spa here that offers the service.

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