Looks like a super nova to me... Could of happened a few thousand years ago.. That star will now enjoy the life of a black hole... or a quasar if you want to get technical...

by now the star could have collapse to a neutron star or a black hole..

by the way, quasars are of galaxy size, they contain about a few thousand times more stars than a galaxy, and they move very2 fast.

chinese astrologers, noted a very bright quasars passing by near us a few undred years ago. It is so bright that it is sometimes visible at day time.
However, it has moved away since...

i cant see this 'nova' where is it?

hehe, kimk, looks like the nick suits you

I don't have a drinking problem. I drink. I get drunk. I fall down. No problem.
(stolen from a local pub)

wow.. amazing - the speculations i mean..

actually, the thing in the picture is not a quasar, but our very home.. spectacular? its the milky way.

Explanation: What's behind the Moon? Each month, our Moon passes in front of -- and outshines -- many an interesting star field. Exceptions occur during a new Moon and during a total eclipse. In the background of a new Moon is usually the Sun, an even brighter orb that even more easily outshines everything behind it, except during a total solar eclipse. Even the longest total solar eclipse lasts just a few minutes, while the Sun's corona still remains bright. During a total lunar eclipse, however, the full Moon dims and a majestic star field may present itself for an hour or more. Such was the case during the middle of last month, when a rare glimpse of an eclipsed Moon superposed in front of the disk of our home Milky Way Galaxy was captured. Although fully in the Earth's shadow, the eclipsed Moon is still the brightest object on the right. The above image was captured during sub-zero weather from the Teide 2003 expedition to Mirador del Pico Viejo, a mountain in the Canary Islands, Spain, off the northwest coast of Africa.

@zlo, thanks..

Science is knowledge.
Knowledge is power.
Time is money.
power = work/time
therefore, knowledge= work/money
therefore, money = work/knowledge
therefore, money is inversely proportional to knowledge.

therefore,

The more knowledge you have, the less money you have.

Prepare for the worst, for you have read the worst.

quasars are not galaxy sized....there are quasars in our galaxy.....and it could be a supernova, light takes a longass time to reach earth, i wouldnt be surprised if it is a supernova, that doesnt mean it is still a supernova, it could be a blackhole or a smallass neutron star... but the light from that big star looking thing could be a supernova, and that big band stretching across the sky is our galaxy....well most of it.

Heretic

"He would make a lovely corpse." - Charles Dickens (1812-1870)

I believe quasars are not in our galaxy, they are galaxies on their own.

After some googling:
"It was found these sources could not be stars in our galaxy, but must be very far away --- as far as any of the distant galaxies seen. We now think these objects are the very bright centers of some distant galaxies, where some sort of energetic action is occurring, most probably due to the presence of a supermassive black hole at the center of that galaxy (supermassive = made up from a mass of about a billion solar masses)."

Link

My professor in astronomy is the lead research professor that does research on black holes using the hubble telescope... So when I say quasar I know what I am talking about... Its all the material that surrounds a black hole that its sucking in from other stars and other space debris so it usually looks like a big disk it sometimes even makes other stars look oblong... that is the only way we know there are black holes otherwise we would never know about them because black holes trap even light and all other waves... so there!

to Kimk i was not referring to the milky way in the picture just the abnormally bright star...

Quasar is "short" for "quasi-stellar object", IIRC.
Quasars were first discovered by T. Matthews and A. Sandage in 1963.
They were discovered by radio-telescopes (Quasars emmit X-rays of 10^38 to 10^40 W). Quasars radiate about 10^15 ions/cubic meter and their radiation raidus is a few lightyears wide. Their luminescence is also very high, M = -26^m up to -31^m, while a galaxy would have M = -24^m at the most. This means that a quasar is about 100 times more luminous than a galaxy. So there.



Cpbuja ybuja!

omfg.. i don't believe it.. what quasar? i even posted the answer to what the picture was !! omfg...
people... i'm going to say this once and once only..the bright yellow object.. is

THE MOOON... THE MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON (the one where ppl used to think was made of cheese and other stuff)
@topgunsss, techinically, you didn't know what you were talking about, since if you did, you'd have been talking about the bright yellow moon that we know and love, not some quasar.

p.s. did i mention the yellow thing was a moon? well it is, and NOT a quasar or ANYThING ELSE.

i sincerely hope i made myself clear. the moon does not like to be seen differently. you might mutate the werewolves.

Science is knowledge.
Knowledge is power.
Time is money.
power = work/time
therefore, knowledge= work/money
therefore, money = work/knowledge
therefore, money is inversely proportional to knowledge.

therefore,

The more knowledge you have, the less money you have.

Prepare for the worst, for you have read the worst.

OK, I know that it's the Moon... It's just that they were talking about quasars, and I... I just couldn't resist... *Homer Simpson-like OMG Boo Hoo*
And your assumption that I was on topic in the off topic forum is equally as disturbing...



Cpbuja ybuja!

I know its the moon on the pic, was just discussing quasars.

so where was this picture taken from?