This Week’s Night Sky: Earthshine and an Exploding Star
A lucky few in the far north will also see a solar eclipse on the first day of spring.
This week sky-watchers can see a newly discovered stellar explosion and watch the moon play tag with the gods of love and war.
Discovered by Australian sky-watcher John Seach on Sunday, March 15, the exploding star has been dubbed PNV J18365700-2855420. This star was not previously visible but shot up in brightness to magnitude 6.3 at the time of its discovery. Amateur astronomers in Japan are reporting today that its brightness continues to rise and now sits at magnitude 5.3—making it just barely visible to the naked eye from dark locations and a fairly easy target with binoculars.
Discoveries of new novae are exciting for astronomers because they represent stars that are blowing their stack. Novae are the violent explosions of the
