Starship Asterisk*

The Australian National University (ANU) is inviting everyone with an interest in astronomy to join a search that the University is leading for exploding stars called supernovae.

Astrophysicists use supernovae, which are explosions as bright as 100 million billion billion billion lightning bolts, as light sources to measure the Universe and acceleration of its growth.

Co-lead researcher ANU astrophysicist Dr Brad Tucker said scientists can measure the distance of a supernova from Earth by calculating how much the light from the exploding star fades. ...

The ANU project will allow citizen scientists to use a web portal on Zooniverse.org to search images taken by the SkyMapper telescope at the ANU Siding Spring Observatory for the SkyMapper Transient Survey. ...

[img3="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"]https://media.eurekalert.org/multimedia ... 30_web.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]

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. ...

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. ...

Co-lead researcher Dr Anais Möller said the Ia supernova discovered through the ANU project had already been named.

"Supernovae have boring names - it's called SN2017dxh," said Dr Möller ...