Talk:SN 1987A

message: I don't see the mass of the progenitor listed anywhere here. This page  suggests it was about ~18 Solar M(o). Fig (talk) 14:58, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: We don't really know. What we have is guesses. E.g., Initial ~20 solar masses, from here (reference in Sanduleak_-69_202). This works backwards from spectral class and luminosity, as has low confidence. Tarl N. (discuss) 15:37, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mass of progenitor 

message: There is a good deal of discussion of the cause of the inner ring around the star, but none of the two rings overlapping one another that are not centred around the star.
What is the cause of those extra two rings? Also, there are two very bright stars and one less-bright reddish star on or nearly on the two rings.  Are they coincidental near stars that merely happen to be on the path to the supernova?
VictoriaWordNerd (talk) 23:19, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: The two "outer" rings are actually centred on the star, but we see the system at an angle.  The rings are the tips of an hourglass of material ejected from the progenitor star before it exploded, and now highlighted by the supernova explosion.  I agree this is not explained well in the article.  There are a number of papers discussing the origin of the rings.  The two stars on the rings are probably not related, although they may well be LMC stars.  Although they appear bright in deep images, they are about 15th magnitude.  There are other, fainter, stars even closer to the supernova location, again not related so far as we know.  Lithopsian (talk) 14:20, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Non-circumstellar rings 

message: Does it really not have a name other than 'SN 1987A remnant'? It's a planetary nebula, right? Arlo James Barnes 09:49, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not a planetary nebula, it's a supernova remnant.  Not surprising really since it was created by a supernova.  If you're looking for a snappy name like Supermag, you're out of luck.  All the designations I'm aware of, and there are quite a few, have both letters and numbers in them, with the possible exception of LMC SN, which Simbad lists but which I've never seen being used.  Lithopsian (talk) 13:16, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  remnant 

message: The JWST is scheduled to observe SN 1987A for 7 1/2 hours on 2022-07-16 UTC. I don't have recent editing experience; would one of you care to add this to the article? The source is https://www.stsci.edu/files/live/sites/www/files/home/jwst/science-execution/observing-schedules/_documents/2219603f02_report_20220715.txt , which is linked to by https://www.stsci.edu/jwst/science-execution/observing-schedules — Wdfarmer (talk) 20:51, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Nifty news, thanks! But given that's going to be tomorrow, we probably don't have to update the article (per WP:NOTNEWS) until the observations have been made. Although this ventures into WP:CRYSTALBALL, I would assume that some form of image release will happen shortly thereafter, which would make an ideal opportunity to update the article. Tarl N. (discuss) 21:02, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
replies: text:  The observing run is complete, but you won't necessarily see anything about it for a while.  The researchers will have the raw data, but are unlikely to produce anything printworthy until they have a paper ready to publish.  As far as I can tell, the raw data is not available publicly, although it might well be once the research team have published.  Lithopsian (talk) 13:14, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
replies: text:  https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.06692文爻林夕 (talk) 22:45, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
replies: text:  https://phys.org/news/2023-08-webb-reveals-iconic-supernova.html Arlo James Barnes 00:18, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

text: Still only preprint, submitted but not accepted yet.  The image can be included though, very nice.  The paper is very detailed; I haven't read the whole thing yet, but can probably use it for some updates in the last two sections.  Lithopsian (talk) 13:23, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  James Webb Space Telescope planned observations