New Brunswick girl youngest astronomer to discover supernova
Ten-year-old was assisted by her father, who once held the record
By Tobi Cohen, Postmedia News January 4, 2011
Kathryn Aurora Gray is taking her new celebrity in stride after becoming the youngest person ever to discover a supernova.
The 10-year-old Fredericton girl's phone has been ringing off the hook ever since the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada announced her find Monday.
But the amateur astronomer knows -- better than anybody, perhaps -- that her discovery is fleeting. "It's just a blowing-up of stars so eventually it will fade away," she said of the supernova. "I was very excited to find one. Especially this quick."
Kathryn made the discovery over the weekend under the supervision of her father Paul Gray and with help from family friend David Lane, longtime astronomy enthusiasts who were co-credited with the find.
According to the society, the trio spotted a magnitude 17 supernova in galaxy UGC 3378 in the constellation Camelopardalis, about 240 million light years away.
Supernovas are stellar explosions caused by the violent death of massive stars that are far bigger than the Earth's sun and emit a bright light that fades over several weeks.
Lane collected the images with a telescope in Halifax on New Year's Eve and sent them over to the Grays, who began examining them on Sunday using computer software that allows users to lay new images on top of old ones and click between them to look for differences. Kathryn said they quickly ruled out "noise" on the photograph and contacted a third party to take another photo in order to rule out a comet or asteroid.
"We sent the email off and then they made sure no one else had discovered it before and then they made an announcement."
While this is Paul Gray's seventh supernova -- he found his first in 1995 at age 22, making him the youngest person at that time to spot one -- he had more or less abandoned his supernova-finding hobby to take up stellar photography until his daughter said that she wanted to give it a try. She spotted it 15 minutes into looking at her first images.
The 10-year-old Fredericton girl's phone has been ringing off the hook ever since the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada announced her find Monday.
But the amateur astronomer knows -- better than anybody, perhaps -- that her discovery is fleeting. "It's just a blowing-up of stars so eventually it will fade away," she said of the supernova. "I was very excited to find one. Especially this quick."
Kathryn made the discovery over the weekend under the supervision of her father Paul Gray and with help from family friend David Lane, longtime astronomy enthusiasts who were co-credited with the find.
According to the society, the trio spotted a magnitude 17 supernova in galaxy UGC 3378 in the constellation Camelopardalis, about 240 million light years away.
Supernovas are stellar explosions caused by the violent death of massive stars that are far bigger than the Earth's sun and emit a bright light that fades over several weeks.
Lane collected the images with a telescope in Halifax on New Year's Eve and sent them over to the Grays, who began examining them on Sunday using computer software that allows users to lay new images on top of old ones and click between them to look for differences. Kathryn said they quickly ruled out "noise" on the photograph and contacted a third party to take another photo in order to rule out a comet or asteroid.
"We sent the email off and then they made sure no one else had discovered it before and then they made an announcement."
While this is Paul Gray's seventh supernova -- he found his first in 1995 at age 22, making him the youngest person at that time to spot one -- he had more or less abandoned his supernova-finding hobby to take up stellar photography until his daughter said that she wanted to give it a try. She spotted it 15 minutes into looking at her first images.
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