On Tuesday, January 21, during what should have been a routine workshop on telescope operations, students and staff saw a star explode. Undergraduate students at the University College London were being instructed in the operation of observatory equipment when they observed the closest supernova visible from Earth in the past several decades.

“The weather was closing in, with increasing cloud,” Dr Steve Fossey says, “so instead of the planned practical astronomy class, I gave the students an introductory demonstration of how to use the CCD camera on one of the observatory’s automated 0.35–metre telescopes.”

The students, Ben Cooke, Tom Wright, Matthew Wilde and Guy Pollack chose nearby galaxy Messier 82 (the Cigar Galaxy) as a subject and the quick introduction rapidly turned into an international scramble to acquire confirmation and spectra of a rare supernova 12 million light-years from Earth.

“One minute we’re eating pizza then five minutes later we’ve helped to discover a supernova. I couldn’t believe it. It reminds me why I got interested in astronomy in the first place,” said undergraduate student Tom Wright.

With cloud cover closing in, the group had limited time, but managed to take a series of one- and two-minute exposures, using different colored filters to check that the object persisted. They also started a second telescope to gather additional data.

They moved quickly to alert other astronomers worldwide so that the find could be confirmed and spectrum data gathered. That data was used to confirm that it was, in fact, a supernova and not some other phenomenon. Fossey also prepared reports for the International Astronomical Union (IAU), an organization that catalogs supernovae, and other interested groups.

According to a press release from the University College London, their find was confirmed to be a “Type Ia supernova, caused by a white dwarf star pulling matter off a larger neighbouring star until it becomes unstable and explodes.” The IAU has given it the designation SN 2014J.

“The chances of finding anything new in the sky is astronomical but this was particularly astounding as it was one of the first images we had taken on this telescope. My career plan had been to continue my studies in astrophysics. It’s going to be hard to ever top this though,“ said student Ben Cook.

There has not been an observed Supernova this close to Earth since 1993, that one was in the same neighborhood as this one, Messier 81. Supernova 1987A, in 1987, was the closest ever observed at 168,000 light years away.

Source: University College London