Word: supernovas
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...years, astronomers, theologians, skeptics and believers have pondered the story of the star of Bethlehem. Did some celestial display actually mark Jesus birth, or is the biblical reference merely figurative? Did a new star really appear in the heavens? Could it have been what contemporary astronomers call a supernova, or exploding star? A comet? Or might the "star" really have been a juxtaposition of two of the brighter planets...
...Middle Ages, Copernicus displaced earth from its position at the center of the solar system. But Aristotle's thinking continued to dominate astronomy until 1572, when Tycho Brahe observed a bright new star (which scientists now know was a supernova, or exploding star) near the constellation Cassiopeia. Beyond any doubt, it had not previously been visible. Other blows to Aristotelian cosmology followed swiftly. By early in the 17th century, Galileo had used his telescope to discover spots on the sun−demonstrating that the solar complexion was somewhat less than perfect−and to prove that...
Andrew Tobias, too, sees his present success in just being able to relax a bit. Not long ago he was "a very ambitious, aggressive, high-strung Harvard graduate," a former president of Harvard Student Agencies and a co-founder of a company that was expanding like a supernova. Before Tobias could blink, he had $400,000 worth of stock options. And when the bubble inevitably burst, reducing his paper holdings to nothing, he was standing back, watching the whole thing from a healthy distance, slightly cynical and slightly wise. Naturally, he wrote a book about...
...identified one of these larger circles as a representation of the bright star Canopus. The other circle, which was even bigger, had no existing counterpart in the sky. But it was approximately at the site of the invisible pulsar. Could the second circle be a primitive drawing of the supernova...
Although his evidence suggests that the primitive peoples of the region did record the supernova, Michanowsky wants more proof. He will soon begin a search for similar markings in other locations-especially higher up in the Andes, where in the thin mountain air the supernova would have appeared even more brilliant. Perhaps the exploding star inspired other primitive artists to record its fiery appearance...