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10-year-old Canadian girl discovers a supernova

Astronomer dad helps daughter become youngest to find stellar blast

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Image: Kathryn Gray
David Smith  /  AP
Ten-year-old Kathryn Gray sits next to a computer at the family's home in Birdton, New Brunswick, Canada, a suburb of Fredericton, on Monday. On the computer monitor is an image in which she discovered a supernova. The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada says she made the discovery on the weekend under the watch of two other astronomers.
By
Universe Today
updated 1/4/2011 10:46:07 AM ET 2011-01-04T15:46:07

A 10-year-old girl from Canada has discovered a supernova, making her the youngest person ever to find a stellar explosion.

The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada announced the discovery by Kathryn Aurora Gray of Fredericton, New Brunswick, (wonderful middle name!) who was assisted by astronomers Paul Gray and David Lane.

Supernova 2010lt is a magnitude-17 supernova in galaxy UGC 3378, in the constellation of Camelopardalis, as reported on IAU Electronic Telegram 2618. The galaxy was imaged on New Year’s Eve 2010, and the supernova was discovered on Jan. 2, 2011, by Kathryn and her father Paul.

The observations were made from Abbey Ridge Observatory, and this is the third supernova seen from this observatory. It was Lane’s fourth supernova discovery, Paul Gray’s seventh, and Kathryn Gray’s first.

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The discovery was soon verified by Illinois-based amateur astronomer Brian Tieman and Arizona-based Canadian amateur astronomer Jack Newton.

Since a supernova can outshine millions of ordinary stars, it can be easy to spot with a modest telescope — even in a distant galaxy such as UGC 3378, which is about 240 million light-years away. The trick is to check previous images of the same location to see if there are any changes. That’s what Kathryn was doing for the images of the galaxy taken by her father.

Supernovas are stellar explosions that signal the violent deaths of stars several times more massive than our sun, and can be used to estimate the size and age of our universe.

Supernovas are rare events. The Chandra X-Ray Observatory found evidence of a supernova explosion that occurred about 140 years ago in our galaxy (although no one saw the explosion take place), making it the most recent in the Milky Way. Previously, the last known supernova in our galaxy occurred around 1680, an estimate based on the expansion of its remnant, Cassiopeia A.

Source: Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. Universe Today report: "10-year-old girl discovers a supernova."

Copyright © 2013 Universe Today. Republished with permission.
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Photos: Month in Space: April 2013

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    The view from space

    This view from the International Space Station shows the sun heading toward the horizon over southwestern Australia on April 2, 2013. The space station's solar panels loom in the foreground. (Commander Chris Hadfield / CSA via AFP - Getty Images) Back to slideshow navigation

  2. Horsehead of a different color

    The Horsehead Nebula takes on an eerie glow in an infrared image from the Hubble Space Telescope. This picture, released April 21, marks the 23rd anniversary of the famous observatory's launch in 1990 aboard the space shuttle Discovery. (NASA / ESA / Hubble Heritage Team via EPA) Back to slideshow navigation
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  3. Tight quarters

    Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano (right), NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg (left) and Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin get their picture taken inside a Soyuz capsule simulator during a training exercise at Russia's Star City complex outside Moscow on April 26. The three spacefliers are scheduled to head for the International Space Station in May. (Sergei Remezov / Reuters) Back to slideshow navigation

  4. Blazing sun

    This full-disk view of the sun was captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory on April 11, during the strongest solar flare yet seen in 2013. The colors reflect the intensity of emissions in extreme ultraviolet wavelengths. (NASA / SDO) Back to slideshow navigation
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  5. Evil eye

    Mountain ridges near San Alberto in Mexico look like a reptilian eye in this view from the International Space Station. Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield uses a different metaphor: "A Dali watch on an alligator wristband." The picture was taken on April 15 and shared via social media on April 25. (Commander Chris Hadfield / Canadian Space Agency) Back to slideshow navigation

  6. Russian rocket's red glare

    A Russian Soyuz rocket blasts away from its launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on March 29, sending NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy and Russian crewmates Pavel Vinogradov and Alexander Misurkin toward the International Space Station for their six-month orbital tour of duty. (Sergei Ilnitsky / EPA) Back to slideshow navigation

  7. Fun with rockets

    Children hold self-made rocket models during a show in front of the Peter and Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg, Russia, on April 14. The gathering was part of the festivities surrounding Cosmonautics Day on April 12. The Russian holiday marks the anniversary of Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin's historic spaceflight in 1961 - an occasion marked in other countries as "Yuri's Night." (Alexander Demianchuk / Reuters) Back to slideshow navigation

  8. Strokes in the Sahara

    Geological formations take on an alien look in a picture of the southern Sahara in Mauritania, taken on March 19 from the International Space Station and shared via social media on April 24. Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield calls the scene "effortless natural art." (Commander Chris Hadfield / Canadian Space Agency) Back to slideshow navigation

  9. Stars in the cloud

    This glittering picture shows X-ray emissions from young sunlike stars in the "wing" of the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy associated with the larger Milky Way. The Small Magellanic Cloud lies about 180,000 light-years from Earth. In this April 4 picture, readings from the Chandra X-ray Observatory are shown in purple; visible light seen by the Hubble Space Telescope is in red, green, and blue; and infrared readings from the Spitzer Space Telescope are indicated in red. (NASA via Reuters) Back to slideshow navigation
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  10. A blast on Mars

    This image from the high-resolution camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows a relatively youthful crater with dark-rayed ejecta, plus a light-toned zone that extends beyond that ejecta. The picture was taken in 2009, but it was released along with other images from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE, on April 3, 2013. Watch a video about the crater (NASA/JPL/University Of Arizona) Back to slideshow navigation
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  12. Storm over the Middle East

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  13. Blue heaven

    A March 27 photo from the European Southern Observatory shows the bright open star cluster NGC 2547, as seen by the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile. Many remote galaxies can be seen between the bright stars, far away in the background of the image. (ESO via AFP - Getty Images) Back to slideshow navigation
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  14. Ready for a rocket ride

    Launch crew members check NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy's spacesuit just before his March 28 launch to the International Space Station. Russian cosmonauts Pavel Vinogradov and Alexander Misurkin joined Cassidy in a Soyuz capsule for a quick six-hour ride to the station. (Ramil Sitdikov / Ria Novosti / EPA) Back to slideshow navigation
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  16. Where stars are born

    An enormous stellar nursery known as W3 shines in infrared light, as shown in a March 27 image from the European Space Agency's Herschel space observatory. W3 lies about 6,200 light-years away in the Perseus Arm, one of the Milky Way galaxy's main spiral arms. In this image, low-mass stars are seen as tiny yellow dots embedded in cool red filaments. In contrast, high-mass stars emit intense radiation that heats up the gas and dust around them. Those hot regions are shown here in blue. (ESA via AFP - Getty Images) Back to slideshow navigation

  17. Crazy quilt

    The rugged landscape of Iytwelepenty/Davenport Murchison National Park in the Australian Outback is "crazily beautiful" when seen from outer space, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield says. Hadfield sent down this picture from the International Space Station on April 21. (Commander Chris Hadfield / Canadian Space Agency) Back to slideshow navigation

  18. A comet's glow

    Comet ISON takes on a fuzzy glow in an April 10 image from the Hubble Space Telescope. This picture was taken when the comet was 394 million miles from Earth, but Comet ISON is expected to get much closer. Some skywatchers hope it will become bright enough to rank as the "Comet of the Century." (J.-Y. Li (PSI) / NASA / ESA) Back to slideshow navigation
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