charmed ME-262 called <Plutonium>?

Bryan Irby irby at CRUX.ASTR.UA.EDU
Fri Mar 8 16:39:16 EST 1996


> stars because romans wrote about a "new star" in the skies.  Nova = New.  We
> now know that this "new star" was a star that underwent a process we now
> refer to as a Nova, and Supernova is an extrapolation of that.  But many
> astronomers would be quick to point out (Sagan did in one of his books) that
> this usage of the word is wholly wrong, the star in question was always
> there, just too far away for us to see it prior to its going nova.


Indeed, and I should have known better about the history of the word nova,
as I wrote a master's thesis on Novae in M31!!   Oops!

-Bryan



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