Do you want to get an alert email when neutrino detectors around the planet detect a “nearby” (= galactic) core-collapse super nova (which will happen some time before it can be seen with optical telescopes!) ??
That’s what the SNEWS[1] alert mailing list was set up for, and many of you will have subcribed to it. Because there hasn’t been a single alert yet, it is easy to forget about the list, and if you are like me, you might not be entirely sure whether the email address you once used to subscribe is actually still valid or watched by you.
There is a simple way to check: if you think you are subscribed, but you didn’t get an email with the subject
“[[Snews-alert] ] SNEWS Mailing List upgrade: Not a Supernova!!”
then something is wrong and you will probably need to act in order to receive those alerts.
This email message from Alec Habig, sent around Aug 21st 2024, was just a heads-up to inform about a technology upgrade to the mailing-list server.
Quote from that email:
[…]
However, our gracious hosts at BNL have upgraded their mailing list
software (from Mailman to Sympa). Since things have migrated to a new
system, you should know what your email address is doing, so hence this
email.You can manage your subscritions here: Mailing lists service - home
Other SNEWS news while I’m intruding on your inbox: we’ve been working
on an upgrade to the coincidence network, which you can learn about
here:
If you are missing that email, perhaps it went into your spam folder? Well, the same could happen to the long awaited neutrino alert! If you can, flag that sender as “safe”/“not spam”.
Cheers
HB
[1] https://snews2.org/