DID primitive hominids gasp at the sight of a dazzling supernova nearly 2 million years ago?
Peter McCullough and his colleagues from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have found a faint shell of gas in the southern constellation of Antlia. The shape is the hallmark of an exploded star, and the team’s calculations suggest the cloud may be as close as 200 light years away (Astrophysical Journal Letters, vol 576, p 41). “This could be the nearest supernova remnant to the Sun,” says team member Vasiliki Pavlidou. On Earth, the explosion would have appeared nearly as bright as the…
