A supernova which exploded 970 million years ago was discovered by volunteers. The discovery predates the dinosaurs' time on Earth.
Phys reported how some online volunteers discovered an exploded supernova 970 million years ago. The volunteers including a man from Scotland and a woman from Belgium helped astronomers at the Australian National University or ANU. The discovery is said to predates the dinosaurs' time on Earth.
The volunteers were invited by the ANU to join their event on the search for supernovae or exploding stars. All persons with the high interest in astronomy registered and joined the event which helped the scientists measure the Universe and how fast it has grown over the years.
According to IFLScience, the success had been achieved in just as short as one week after its official launching. "Perfect in its boringness," are the words which Dr. Brad Tucker from the ANU used to describe the first discovery. And the supernova which was discovered was about a distance of 970 million light-years away, this means that it had exploded when dinosaurs were still on Earth.
"This is the exact type of supernova that the ANU Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics (RSAA) were looking for, the type la supernova," Dr. Tucker said. Furthermore, Dr. Tucker mentioned that the 970 million years supernova properties and the distance can be used to measure the Universe.
Among the volunteers are Elisabeth Baeten from Belgium and Alan Craggs from Scotland. In the Universe, there are still seven potential supernovae and the ANU are tracking 18 other possible exploding stars.
According to co-lead researcher Dr. Anais Moller, the discovered la supernova had already been named despite that supernovae have boring names. Since the launch of the event, the ANU had over 30,000 classifications in the first 24 hours, 40,000 supernova classifications, and over 1,300 images were classified. "We are recognizing volunteers to find a previously unknown supernova before we report it to the International Astronomical Union," Dr. Moller said.
