This is very exciting: the star that blew up to form Supernova 2012aw may have been seen in an older Hubble image! First, here's a lovely shot of the galaxy and supernova:
[Click to galactinate.] This is not from Hubble! It's from Adam Block, a frequent contributor of stunning pictures to this blog, who took it using the 0.8 meter (32") Schulman Telescope at Mt. Lemmon on March 20. The supernova is the bright bluish star sitting on a spiral arm to the right and just below the core of the galaxy. M95 is a relatively nearby barred spiral galaxy just about 37 million light years away, so we can see a lot of detail in it. In fact, it's close enough that with big telescopes, individual stars can be seen in it. Once the supernova was spotted and its location determined, astronomers found a picture of M95 taken with ...
