10-year-old Girl Turns Into Youngest To Discover Supernova

The supernova discovered by a Canadian 10-year-old has put the young lady in the record books as the most youthful ever to accomplish such a feat. Working from her Fredericton, New Brunswick home, Kathryn Aurora Gray made her detection with her father's help January 2. The rare occurrence of a supernova is regarded as a major discovery even among the most accomplished of astronomers. This girl may have a fantastic future and not have to take out any unsecured loans for college if she continues this path. Post resource -New Years Eve supernova discovered by 10-year-old Canadian girl by MoneyBlogNewz.

All about supernova discovery



Kathryn Aurora Gray discovered her supernova scanning images of the night sky taken with her father's telescope on New Year's Eve. Images of the sky compared with images of the same area in the past are how Astronomers are able to discover supernovas in a computer program. When a supernova explodes, the bright flash outshines the surrounding stars, appearing up on a subsequent image where it didn't before. Kathryn's night sky images were taken at nearby Abbey Ridge Observatory. The supernova was discovered in a galaxy called UGC 3378 about 240 million light years from Earth.



Astronomer gets lucky



When compared to other astronomers, the discovery Kathryn made was better than others her age might make. She became interested in astronomy about a year ago and decided to focus on finding a supernova when she learned that the youngest person to ever discover an exploding star was a 14-year-old. After finding the star, Kathryn decided to share the credit with her father. Her father is Paul Gray who found six supernovas within the past already.



Close supernova



Astronomers study supernovas because their blasts spew chemical elements billions of miles into space that ultimately coalesce into planets. It was 240 million years ago that the supernova exploded that Kathryn found. The last supernova detected within the Milky Way galaxy exploded about 140 years ago. When it happened, nobody on Earth observed it. There were remnants found from the explosion by the orbiting telescope Chandra X-Ray observatory though. One more supernova explosion happened in 1680 in the Milky way. That was the last known one.



Citations



MSNBC

msnbc.msn.com/id/40908913/ns/technology_and_science-space/


Christian Science Monitor

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandra_X-ray_Observatory



Discovery News

news.discovery.com/space/supernova-discovered-by-10-year-old.html