"It is really incredible what this citizen science network can do. This was the closest supernova of the last decade, and observers took full advantage of the special occasion."The closest cosmic explosion to Earth in the last 10 years became a record breaker for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute. , was first spotted on May 19, 2023, by Japanese amateur astronomer Koichi Itagaki.
A record number of observers, including citizen scientists in the form of amateur astronomers, came together to collect data from a supernova that, a spiral galaxy located approximately 21 million light-years from Earth. With the data, scientists could better understand the behavior of this class of supernovas known as Type II, cosmic explosions that occur when massive stars run out of fuel forAn image of the pinwheel galaxy showing the location of the closest supernova to Earth for 10 years"This was the closest supernova of the last decade, and observers took full advantage of the special occasion.
The effort involved 123 dedicated amateur astronomers making 252 observations with 115 telescopes following how light from the supernova changed over time, first seeing its escalating brightness and then tracking its gradual fading. This allowed the SETI scientists to build a profile for the supernova that astronomers called a light curve, a measurement of its brightness over time.
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