The most recent naked-eye supernova was Supernova Shelton

Chapter 46, Problem 72

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The most recent naked-eye supernova was Supernova Shelton 1987A (Fig. P46.55). It was 170 000 ly away in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. Approximately 3 h before its optical brightening was noticed, two neutrino detection experiments simultaneously registered the first neutrinos from an identified source other than the Sun. The IrvineMichigan Brookhaven experiment in a salt mine in Ohio registered eight neutrinos over a 6-s period, and the Kamiokande II experiment in a zinc mine in Japan counted eleven neutrinos in 13 s. (Because the supernova is far south in the sky, these neutrinos entered the detectors from below. They passed through the Earth before they were by chance absorbed by nuclei in the detectors.) The neutrino energies were between approximately 8 MeV and 40 MeV. If neutrinos have no mass, neutrinos of all energies should travel together at the speed of light, and the data are consistent with this possibility. The arrival times could vary simply because neutrinos were created at different moments as the core of the star collapsed into a neutron star. If neutrinos have nonzero mass, lowerenergy neutrinos should move comparatively slowly. The data are consistent with a 10-MeV neutrino requiring at most approximately 10 s more than a photon would require to travel from the supernova to us. Find the upper limit that this observation sets on the mass of a neutrino. (Other evidence sets an even tighter limit.)

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