I always like Phils descript­ive posts about astro­nom­ical phe­nom­ena; he has a real flair for cap­tur­ing the sense of awe and grandeur that must accom­pany a career in watch­ing galax­ies collide, mega-​​volcanoes erupt, and stars explode.

But this write up on the Veil Neb­ula really caught my eye, Why? Well, look at those dates; that star went bang within the lifespan of our spe­cies, and put a glow­ing neb­ula six times the size of our moon and nearly as bright in the night sky. Some­time not all that long ago, people basic­ally bio­lo­gic­ally the same as up looked up at the night sky and saw, with their naked eyes, a star going nova. What must they have thought of that? And how beau­ti­ful a sight must it have been?

Of course I have no idea what it would have looked like, maybe it was a damp squib; it’s six times the size of the moon now but pre­sum­ably it took time to get there, how big was it when those ancient humans saw it in the sky? Did it go up with a bright flash or was the col­lapse (by our stand­ards) pro­trac­ted, tak­ing hun­dreds of years. Man, there are times when I wish I knew more about astro­nomy, but whatever it looked like, I would have loved to have been around to see it.