Dale Armstrong

SN 2026aaiv

SN stands for supernova, and the associated naming represents a supernova that was discovered on September 1 by the ATLAS telescope array. This supernova is located inside the galaxy NGC 7331 in Pegasus, which is roughly 44 million light-years away from us. Some have referred to 7331 as the Milky Way’s twin!

2026aaiv is a Type 1a supernova, meaning that it is a white dwarf with a binary companion. Due to the proximity of the two stars in orbit around each other, the white dwarf is able to draw gas from the adjacent star until such time as the extra stellar material initiates a runaway fusion reaction. The result is that the, previously invisible, white dwarf briefly rises in brightness to the point of being an intergalactic beacon (standing out from every other star in its own galaxy), burning off the excess gas, and then returning to its humble, invisible, self.

If you look closely, you’ll see four more galaxies to the left of NGC 7331 - scroll right.

These little galaxies are nicknamed ‘The Fleas’. Three of them are located about 350 million light-years from Earth while the fourth, NGC 7336 is 450 million light-years away from us.

I took this photo at 1:09 AM on the morning of September 12 using a Celestron 14 and a Lumix G9.