SN 1961V was first identified by a Swiss astronomer born in what year?
SN 1961V SN 1961V was an abnormal, supernova-like event that was a potential supernova impostor. The potential impostor nature of SN 1961V was first identified by Fritz Zwicky in 1964. SN 1961V occurred in galaxy NGC 1058, about 9.3 Mpc away (about 30 million light years). Unlike many supernovae, the progenitor star is tentatively known: an extremely large, very bright blue star, similar to Eta Carinae. Mass estimates of the precursor star were as high as 2000 times the mass of the sun, but these are likely to be extreme overestimates. If SN 1961V was not a supernova then it was most likely an extremely large outburst by a luminous blue variable star.
Marc-Auguste Pictet Marc-Auguste Pictet (] ; July 23, 1752 – April 19, 1825) was a scientific journalist and an experimental natural philosopher (physicist, chemist, meteorologist, astronomer) from Geneva, Switzerland.