• Question: How many supernovas do you belive are in the universe?

    Asked by Cameron Brooking to Heather, Helen, Hugh, Jane, Julian on 14 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Helen Johnson

      Helen Johnson answered on 14 Nov 2014:

      They think about 1 billion supernovae per year!

    • Photo: Julian Onions

      Julian Onions answered on 14 Nov 2014:

      Another way of looking at it is each galaxy has probably about one supernova every 100 years. So we are well overdue for one here!

    • Photo: Heather Campbell

      Heather Campbell answered on 15 Nov 2014:

      Yes as the others say there lots and lots of them! There is about one supernovae per hundred years in a galaxy like ours, and there are about 200 billion galaxies in the Universe!
      The last supernovae seen in our Milky Way galaxy was Kepler’s supernova, over 400 years ago, so were over due one! (But we cant see all of them in our galaxy because they might be hidden behind interstellar dust).

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