Astronomers confirmed this week that a supernova will be visible from Earth in the next 50 years or so.
The odds that a supernova will be visible to telescopes in the form of infrared radiation will happen in the Milky Way in around 50 years increased to 100 percent recently, according to a recent study.
The astronomers discovered the likelihood that Earth will be able to see a supernova by using a simulation of supernova positions and modern dust models.
Astronomers will have a chance to see what occurs at the beginning of a star's demise, something that has yet to be accomplished.
"We see all these stars go supernova in other galaxies, and we don't fully understand how it happens. We think we know, we say we know, but that's not actually 100 percent true," said Christopher Kochanek, professor of astronomy at Ohio State in a statement. "Today, technologies have advanced to the point that we can learn enormously more about supernovae if we can catch the next one in our galaxy and study it with all our available tools."
Click here to read the astronomers findings, which were published in an issue of The Astrophysical Journal.
Usually only remnants of supernova are seen in images, according to the study.
"Every few days, we have the chance to observe supernovae happening outside of our galaxy," said doctoral student Scott Adams in a statement. "But there's only so much you can learn from those, whereas a galactic supernova would show us so much more. Our neutrino detectors and gravitational wave detectors are only sensitive enough to take measurements inside our galaxy, where we believe that a supernova happens only once or twice a century."
Finally seeing a supernova occur should prove or disprove theories that have so far only been determined by using calculations.
Supernova's are usually seen in other galaxies, but have been hard to see in our own Milky Way because of dust, according to the study.
""Despite the ease with which astronomers find supernovae occurring outside our galaxy, it wasn't obvious before that it would be possible to get complete observations of a supernova occurring within our galaxy," said Adams. "Soot dims the optical light from stars near the center of the galaxy by a factor of nearly a trillion by the time it gets to us. Fortunately, infrared light is not affected by this soot as much and is only dimmed by a factor of 20."
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