Calculating the Distance to Supernovae

Astronomers use a relationship called the distance modulus to calculate the distance to a supernova. The distance modulus equation uses the difference between the peak apparent magnitude (m) and the peak absolute magnitude (M) in order to calculate the actual distance from Earth, where distance (d) is expressed in megalight-years.

Supernova	$Δ m_{15}$	Peak Apparent Magnitude (m)	Peak Absolute Magnitude (M)
Supernova Data

Questions

Enter the peak apparent magnitude (m) and absolute magnitude (M) for the supernova into the calculator to find its distance from Earth. (Don’t forget to include the negative sign for M.)
$m =$
$M =$
$d = (3.26) 10^{\frac{m - M}{5}} + 1$
calculators.output.distanceModulus
Enter the distance for the supernova in Mly.

Calculating the Distance to Supernovae

Questions

Checkpoint