May 24, 2017 The left is the \"new image\" from a couple of nights ago while the middle one is the \"reference\" image taken a couple of years ago, the right image is the difference between \"new\" and \"reference.\" The researchers said there is clearly an exploding star in the outskirts of the galaxy. Credit: ANU <\/p>\n
Online volunteers, including a woman from Belgium and a Scottish man, have helped astronomers at The Australian National University (ANU) find a star that exploded 970 million years ago, predating the dinosaurs' time on Earth. <\/p>\n
ANU has invited everyone with an interest in astronomy to join the University's search for exploding stars called supernovae, which scientists can use to measure the Universe and acceleration of its growth. <\/p>\n
Co-lead researcher Dr Brad Tucker said his team was able to confirm a previously unknown object was a real exploding star in just a day, thanks to the efficiency and dedication of volunteer supernovae hunters - more than 700 of them. <\/p>\n
\"The supernova is about 970 million light years away, meaning that it exploded before the dinosaurs were even on the Earth,\" said Dr Tucker from the ANU Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics (RSAA). <\/p>\n
\"This is the exact type of supernova we're looking for - type Ia supernova - to measure properties of and distances across the Universe.\" <\/p>\n
Among the amateur co-discoverers are Alan Craggs from Aberdeenshire in Scotland and Elisabeth Baeten from Belgium. <\/p>\n
Seven potential supernovae have been reported to the Transient Name Server. <\/p>\n
\"We are tracking 18 other possible exploding stars,\" Dr Tucker said. <\/p>\n
Co-lead researcher Dr Anais Mller said the Ia supernova discovered through the ANU project had already been named. <\/p>\n
\"Supernovae have boring names - it's called SN2017dxh,\" said Dr Mller from RSAA. <\/p>\n
\"We are recognising volunteers by listing the first three people to find a previously unknown supernova in the discovery when we report it to the International Astronomical Union. <\/p>\n
\"In the first 24 hours we had over 30,000 classifications. We've almost reached 40,000 classifications, with more than 1,300 images classified, since the launch of our project.\" <\/p>\n
Astrophysicists use supernovae, which are explosions as bright as 100 million billion billion billion lightning bolts, as light sources to measure how the Universe is growing and better understand dark energy, the cause of the Universe's acceleration. <\/p>\n
Scientists can measure the distance of a supernova from Earth by calculating how much the light from the exploding star fades. <\/p>\n
The ANU project allows citizen scientists to use a web portal on Zooniverse.org to search images taken by the SkyMapper 1.3-metre telescope at the ANU Siding Spring Observatory for the SkyMapper Transient Survey. <\/p>\n
Citizen volunteers scan the SkyMapper images online to look for differences and mark up those differences for the researchers to follow up. <\/p>\n
SkyMapper is the only telescope that is doing a comprehensive survey of the southern sky looking for supernovae and other interesting transient events at these distances. <\/p>\n
Watch a video interview with Dr Brad Tucker about the project: <\/p>\n
The video will load shortly <\/p>\n
People can to participate in the ANU citizen science project at http:\/\/www.zooniverse.org\/projects\/skymap\/supernova-sighting<\/a> to join the search for exploding stars. <\/p>\n Explore further: Four unknown objects being investigated in Planet 9 search <\/p>\n Astronomers from The Australian National University (ANU) are investigating four unknown objects that could be candidates for a new planet in our Solar System, following the launch of their planetary search on the BBC's Stargazing ... <\/p>\n ANU is launching a search for a new planet in our solar system, inviting anyone around the world with access to the Internet to help make the historic discovery. <\/p>\n It may soon be possible to detect the universe's first stars by looking for the blue colour they emit on explosion. <\/p>\n More than 40,000 amateur astronomers have classified two million unidentified heavenly bodies found by the SkyMapper telescope at The Australian National University (ANU). <\/p>\n Astronomers have captured the earliest minutes of two exploding stars and for the first time seen a shockwave generated by a star's collapsing core. <\/p>\n Astronomers have used the NASA\/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to observe the remnant of a supernova explosion in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Beyond just delivering a beautiful image, Hubble may well have traced the surviving ... <\/p>\n Combined observations from three spacecraft show that Jupiter's brightest auroral features recorded to date are powered by both the volcanic moon Io and interaction with the solar wind. <\/p>\n NASA's Juno mission, led by Southwest Research Institute's Dr. Scott Bolton, is rewriting what scientists thought they knew about Jupiter specifically, and gas giants in general, according to a pair of Science papers released ... <\/p>\n Methanol, a key building block for the complex organic compounds that comprise life, has been detected for the first time in the protoplanetary disk of a young, distant star. This finding could help scientists better understand ... <\/p>\n Using a system developed under an ESA contract, the Greek NELIOTA project has begun to detect flashes of light caused by small pieces of rock striking the moon's surface. NELIOTA is the first system that can determine the ... <\/p>\n NASA's Cassini spacecraft still has a few months to go before it completes its mission in September, but the veteran Saturn explorer reaches a new milestone today. Saturn's solsticethat is, the longest day of summer in ... <\/p>\n A team of astronomers including Carnegie's Eduardo Baados and led by Roberto Decarli of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy has discovered a new kind of galaxy which, although extremely oldformed less than a billion ... <\/p>\n Please sign in to add a comment. Registration is free, and takes less than a minute. Read more <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Here is the original post: <\/p>\n Volunteers help astronomers find star that exploded 970 million ... - Phys.Org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" May 24, 2017 The left is the \"new image\" from a couple of nights ago while the middle one is the \"reference\" image taken a couple of years ago, the right image is the difference between \"new\" and \"reference.\" The researchers said there is clearly an exploding star in the outskirts of the galaxy. Credit: ANU Online volunteers, including a woman from Belgium and a Scottish man, have helped astronomers at The Australian National University (ANU) find a star that exploded 970 million years ago, predating the dinosaurs' time on Earth. Continue reading