Citizen science on the bus: Amateurs discover exploding star almost in real time
As part of the Kilonova Science project, anyone and everyone can search for exploding stars. Now the first major discovery has been made.
The star after the explosion (left) and before (center), next to it the difference
(Image: University of Warwick)
A major discovery has now been made for the first time as part of a citizen science project to search for exploding stars in real time. As the British University of Warwick explains, the “Kilonova Seeker” program discovered how a distant star became 2500 times brighter with a delay of just three and a half hours. This enabled a whole series of follow-up observations in very different areas of the electromagnetic spectrum, as well as high-quality amateur images. Analyses have shown that this is the outburst of a variable star that has reached the end of its life. The discovery is extraordinary, the team adds.
Searching for stellar explosions in traffic jam
(Image:Â University of Warwick)
Kilonova Seeker is about searching observations from a telescope on the Spanish island of La Palma for changes in real time. Before and after images are created automatically, which a person can then check and roughly classify on a smartphone, for example. If a massive change is found that could be due to an exploding star, for example, follow-up observations can be quickly initiated, and the object examined in more detail. In the case of the object now presented in a specialist article in the scientific journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, the rapid investigation would not have been possible without the help of the amateurs, explains the team.
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Among those involved in the discovery was a man from the Bulgarian capital Sofia, who uses Kilonova Seeker to pass the time on the bus in stressful rush-hour traffic. The project, which aims to search for so-called kilonovae – i.e., medium-brightness outbursts of stars – is an ideal way to pass the time, he explains. A man from Brazil, who was also involved in the discovery, has used the search to distract himself from a serious health problem, as he now recounts. All the people who discovered the system called GOTO0650 are named as co-authors. It probably consists of a white dwarf star that extracts material from its companion, which sometimes explodes.
(mho)
