Tag: Farley Ferrante

Astronomy: High school students identify an ultra-rare star

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date February 20, 2017
No Comments on Astronomy: High school students identify an ultra-rare star

This newly-discovered variable is one of only seven of its kind known in our galaxy.

Science journalist Alison Klesman with the online science news magazine Astronomy covered the discovery of a variable star by SMU professor Robert Kehoe and the astronomy team in the SMU Department of Physics.

A high school student in an SMU summer astronomy program made the initial discovery upon culling through archived star observation data recorded by the small but powerful ROTSE-I telescope formerly at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

Other authors on the study were SMU research astronomer Farley Ferrante, a member of the team, Plano Senior High School student Derek Horning, who first discovered the object in the ROTSE-I data, and Eric Guzman, a physics graduate from the University of Texas at Dallas who is entering SMU’s graduate program and who identified the star as pulsating.

The newest delta Scuti (SKOO-tee) star in our night sky is so rare it’s only one of seven identified by astronomers in the Milky Way. Discovered at SMU, the star — like our sun — is in the throes of stellar evolution, to conclude as a dying ember in millions of years. Until then, the exceptional star pulsates brightly, expanding and contracting from heating and cooling of hydrogen burning at its core.

The Astronomy article, “High school students identify an ultra-rare star,” published Feb. 15, 2017.

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By Alison Klesman
Astronomy
The stars shining in the night sky might seem steady and reliable, but in truth, they are constantly changing and evolving. Out of the 100 billion or so stars that inhabit the Milky Way, a little more than 400,900 are classified as variable, meaning they change in brightness over time.

Of those hundreds of thousands of variables catalogued in our galaxy, however, only seven belong to a class called Triple Mode high amplitude delta Scuti, or HADS(B), stars — and that seventh was just recently discovered by a high school student during a summer astronomy program at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

The star, roughly the size of our Sun or possibly larger, is about 7,000 light-years away in the constellation Pegasus. It currently has only a catalog name: ROTSE1 J232056.45+345150.9. The name comes in part from the telescope used to discover it, the ROTSE-I telescope at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

While examining data from the telescope taken in September of 2000, Plano Senior High School student Derek Hornung noticed the star’s strange light curve, which shows the star’s brightness over time. A non-variable star’s light curve is simply a straight line, unchanging as the hours, days, and months go by. But a variable star exhibits periodic changes in brightness over the course of hours or days, creating a recognizable repeating pattern. Variable stars are classified by the patterns their light curves make, and named after the first star of each type discovered. Delta Scuti variables are thus named after the star delta Scuti.

But there’s more to this story, still. The star is not only a delta Scuti variable, of which there are thousands known, but it is also a rare type within the delta Scuti class, a HADS(B) star. HADS(B) stars show asymmetric light curves that change brightness quickly over time. These stars are pulsating in two modes, which means the star is expanding in two directions at once. There are only 114 HADS(B) stars currently known. Rarer still are Triple Mode HADS(B) stars, of which there were only six previously identified in the Milky way. Triple Mode HADS(B) stars pulsate in not two, but three directions at once. For ROTSE1 J232056.45+345150.9, this process repeats itself every 2.5 hours.

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Tags Dedman College, Farley Ferrante, Robert Kehoe, SMU Department of Physics

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New delta Scuti: Rare pulsating star 7,000 light years away is 1 of only 7 in Milky Way

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date February 13, 2017

A star — as big as or bigger than our sun — in the Pegasus constellation is expanding and contracting in three different directions simultaneously on a scale of once every 2.5 hours, the result of heating and cooling of hydrogen fuel burning 28 million degrees Fahrenheit at its core

The newest delta Scuti (SKOO-tee) star in our night sky is so rare it’s only one of seven identified by astronomers in the Milky Way. Discovered at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, the star — like our sun — is in the throes of stellar evolution, to conclude as a dying ember in millions of years. Until then, the exceptional star pulsates brightly, expanding and contracting from heating and cooling of hydrogen burning at its core.

Astronomers are reporting a rare star as big — or bigger — than the Earth’s sun that is expanding and contracting in a unique pattern in three different directions.

The star is one that pulsates and so is characterized by varying brightness over time. It’s situated 7,000 light years away from the Earth in the constellation Pegasus, said astronomer Farley Ferrante, a member of the team that made the discovery at Southern Methodist University, Dallas.

Called a variable star, this particular star is one of only seven known stars of its kind in our Milky Way galaxy.

“It was challenging to identify it,” Ferrante said. “This is the first time we’d encountered this rare type.”

The Milky Way has more than 100 billion stars. But just over 400,900 are catalogued as variable stars. Of those, a mere seven — including the one identified at SMU — are the rare intrinsic variable star called a Triple Mode ‘high amplitude delta Scuti’ (pronounced SKOO-tee) or Triple Mode HADS(B), for short.

“The discovery of this object helps to flesh out the characteristics of this unique type of variable star. These and further measurements can be used to probe the way the pulsations happen,” said SMU’s Robert Kehoe, a professor in the Department of Physics who leads the SMU astronomy team. “Pulsating stars have also been important to improving our understanding of the expansion of the universe and its origins, which is another exciting piece of this puzzle.”

The star doesn’t yet have a common name, only an official designation based on the telescope that recorded it and its celestial coordinates. The star can be observed through a telescope, but identifying it was much more complicated.

Upon verification, the star was logged into the International Variable Star Index as ROTSE1 J232056.45+345150.9 by the American Association of Variable Star Observers at this link.

How in the universe was it discovered?
SMU’s astrophysicists discovered the variable star by analyzing light curve shape, a key identifier of star type. Light curves were created from archived data procured by ROTSE-I during multiple nights in September 2000. The telescope generates images of optical light from electrical signals based on the intensity of the source. Data representing light intensity versus time is plotted on a scale to create the light curves.

Plano Senior High School student Derek Hornung first discovered the object in the ROTSE-I data and prepared the initial light curves. From the light curves, the astronomers knew they had something special.

It became even more challenging to determine the specific kind of variable star. Then Eric Guzman, a physics graduate from the University of Texas at Dallas, who is entering SMU’s graduate program, solved the puzzle, identifying the star as pulsating.

“Light curve patterns are well established, and these standard shapes correspond to different types of stars,” Ferrante said. “In a particular field of the night sky under observation there may have been hundreds or even thousands of stars. So the software we use generates a light curve for each one, for one night. Then — and here’s the human part — we use our brain’s capacity for pattern recognition to find something that looks interesting and that has a variation. This allows the initial variable star candidate to be identified. From there, you look at data from several other nights. We combine all of those into one plot, as well as add data sets from other telescopes, and that’s the evidence for discerning what kind of variable star it is.”

That was accomplished conclusively during the referee process with the Variable Star Index moderator.

The work to discover and analyze this rare variable star was carried out in conjunction with analyses by eight other high school students and two other undergraduates working on other variable candidates. The high school students were supported by SMU’s chapter of the Department of Energy/National Science Foundation QuarkNet program.

Heating and cooling, expanding and contracting
Of the stars that vary in brightness intrinsically, a large number exhibit amazingly regular oscillations in their brightness which is a sign of some pulsation phenomenon in the star, Ferrante said.

Pulsation results from expanding and contracting as the star ages and exhausts the hydrogen fuel at its core. As the hydrogen fuel burns hotter, the star expands, then cools, then gravity shrinks it back, and contraction heats it back up.

“I’m speaking very generally, because there’s a lot of nuance, but there’s this continual struggle between thermal expansion and gravitational contraction,” Ferrante said. “The star oscillates like a spring, but it always overshoots its equilibrium, doing that for many millions of years until it evolves into the next phase, where it burns helium in its core. And if it’s about the size and mass of the sun — then helium fusion and carbon is the end stage. And when helium is used up, we’re left with a dying ember called a white dwarf.”

Within the pulsating category is a class of stars called delta Scuti, of which there are thousands. They are named for a prototype star whose characteristic features — including short periods of pulsating on the scale of a few hours — are typical of the entire class.

Within delta Scuti is a subtype of which hundreds have been identified, called high amplitude delta Scuti, or HADS. Their brightness varies to a particularly large degree, registering more than 10 percent difference between their minimum and maximum brightness, indicating larger pulsations.

Common delta Scuti pulsate along the radius in a uniform contraction like blowing up a balloon. A smaller sub-category are the HADS, which show asymmetrical-like pulsating curves.

Within HADS, there’s the relatively rare subtype called HADS(B) , of which there are only 114 identified.

Star evolution — just a matter of time
A HADS(B) is distinguished by its two modes of oscillation — different parts of the star expanding at different rates in different directions but the ratio of those two periods is always the same.

For the SMU star, two modes of oscillation weren’t immediately obvious in its light curve.

“But we knew there was something going on because the light curve didn’t quite match known light curves of other delta Scuti’s and HADS’ objects we had studied. The light curves — when laid on top of each other — presented an asymmetry,” Ferrante said. “Ultimately the HADS(B) we discovered is even more unique than that though — it’s a Triple Mode HADS(B) and there were previously only six identified in the Milky Way. So it has three modes of oscillation, all three with a distinct period, overlapping, and happening simultaneously.”

So rare, in fact, there’s no name yet for this new category nor a separate registry designation for it. Guzman, the student researcher who analyzed and categorized the object, recalled how the mystery unfolded.

“When I began the analysis of the object, we had an initial idea of what type it could be,” Guzman said. “My task was to take the data and try to confirm the type by finding a second period that matched a known constant period ratio. After successfully finding the second mode, I noticed a third signal. After checking the results, I discovered the third signal coincided with what is predicted of a third pulsation mode.”

The SMU Triple Mode HADS(B) oscillates on a scale of 2.5 hours, so it will expand and contract 10 times in one Earth day. It and the other known six HADS(B)’s are in the same general region of the Milky Way galaxy, within a few thousand light years of one another.

“I’m sure there are more out there,” Ferrante said, “but they’re still rare, a small fraction.”

Red giant the final phase of star’s evolution
SMU’s Triple Mode HADS(B) is unstable and further along in its stellar evolution than our sun, which is about middle-aged and whose pulsating variations occur over a much longer period of time. SMU’s Triple Mode HADS(B) core temperature, heated from the burning of hydrogen fuel, is about 15 million Kelvin or 28 million degrees Fahrenheit.

Someday, millions of years from now, SMU’s Triple Mode HADS(B) will deplete the hydrogen fuel at its core, and expand into a red giant.

“Our sun might eventually experience this as well,” Ferrante said. “But Earth will be inhospitable long before then. We won’t be here to see it.”

Funding was through the Texas Space Grant Consortium, an affiliate of NASA; SMU Dedman College. Department of Energy/National Science Foundation QuarkNet program.

ROTSE-I began operating in late 1997, surveying the sky all night, every clear night of the year for three years. It was decommissioned in 2001 and replaced by ROTSE-III. SMU owns the ROTSE-IIIb telescope at McDonald Observatory, Fort Davis, Texas.

Tags Dedman College, Farley Ferrante, Robert Kehoe, SMU Department of Physics

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KERA: Telescope-Wielding Twosome: High School Students Discover New Stars

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date September 5, 2014

Their five stars will be known by 16-digit serial numbers. Dominik would have rather immortalized his four dogs.

Lake Highlands High School students Dominik Fritz (left) and Jason Barton collected data until they had what they needed to define their star-to-be as a variable — a star that changes brightness. (Credit: KERA) — Lake Highlands High School students Dominik Fritz (right) and Jason Barton collected data until they had what they needed to define their star-to-be as a variable — a star that changes brightness. (Credit: KERA)

Reporter Courtney Collins with the news team at public radio station KERA covered the discovery of five stars made by two Dallas high school students as members of an SMU summer physics research program. Called Quarknet, the program enabled the students to analyze data gleaned from a high-powered telescope in the New Mexico desert.

All five stars are eclipsing contact binary stars, pairs of stars that orbit around each other so closely that their outer atmospheres touch. As the stars eclipse, they dim and then brighten as one emerges from behind the other. These stars are categorized as variable stars, stars that change brightness, which make up half the stars in the universe.

Lake Highlands High School seniors Dominik Fritz and Jason Barton are the first high school researchers at SMU to discover new stars.

Fritz and Barton are among nine high school students and two high school physics teachers who conducted physics research at SMU through the QuarkNet program.

Collins’ segment published and aired Sept. 4, “Telescope-Wielding Twosome: High School Students Discover New Stars.”

Listen to the segment and read the full story.

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By Courtney Collins
KERA News
To most teenagers, star-gazing is the stuff of first dates.

For two seniors at Lake Highlands High School in Dallas, star-gazing over the summer led to five unusual discoveries.

In some respects, Dominik Fritz and Jason Barton are typical high-schoolers. Jason’s haircut would make a pop star envious and Dominik’s snazzy specs are effortlessly cool.

When these two kids start to talk science, you realize quickly, they’re two in a million.

“I’m personally fascinated by nuclear reactions and that’s basically what happens in stars, it’s full of nuclear reactions, nuclear fusion, a little bit of fission,” Dominik says.

That set of interests made Dominik a perfect candidate for a summer physics program at SMU. Jason and two other Richardson school district students joined him.

While analyzing data from a high-powered telescope, Jason noticed a few stars that weren’t already in the database.

“I started looking over several nights and seeing if they were actual variable stars and if they did change in brightness over time, and then I combined them all and then I eventually submitted it,” Jason says.

In fact, both teens made submission to an international star index that were accepted. Between them, they’d discovered five eclipsing binary contact stars. Dominik translates:

“Two very, very large star systems that are so close that they actually share their atmospheres.”

Lake Highlands physics teacher Ken Taylor says not many kids make it to upper level physics. That’s why he was so keen to get these students out of the textbook and into real research.

“It was beautiful for me to see my students who were going and forging ahead and taking things that they had learned and going into new territory and seeing the looks on their faces when they began to go somewhere where, in a sense, no one had gone before.”

Listen to the segment and read the full story.

Tags Dedman College, Dominik Fritz, Farley Ferrante, Jason Barton, Ken Taylor, Robert Kehoe, SMU Department of Physics

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DMN: Two high school students discover variable stars during SMU summer program

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date August 25, 2014

Two high school students collected data until they had what they needed to define their star-to-be as a variable — a star that changes brightness.

Reporter Alexis Espinosa with the Dallas Morning News covered the discovery of five stars made by two Dallas high school students as members of an SMU summer physics research program. Called Quarknet, the program enabled the students to analyze data gleaned from a high-powered telescope in the New Mexico desert.

Lake Highlands High School seniors Dominik Fritz and Jason Barton are the first high school researchers at SMU to discover new stars.

Fritz and Barton are among nine high school students and two high school physics teachers who conducted physics research at SMU through the QuarkNet program.

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By Alexis Espinosa
Dallas Morning News
Dominik Fritz sat in a Southern Methodist University science lab sifting through data. He hoped to discover a star by searching through months of information collected from a telescope in the New Mexico desert 14 years ago.
And then he found it.

He found a star whose variation had not yet been defined. And he would be the one to define it.

He collected data until he had everything he needed to define it as a variable — a star that changes brightness. A day after he submitted the star to the American Association of Variable Star Observers, the organization requested a few minor corrections.

And then, his star was accepted.

“I was so, so happy. My name is out there. I felt like I really accomplished something,” Fritz said. “I can literally tell people … ‘I found a star.’”

Fritz and a classmate, Jason Barton, both discovered stars this summer as part of the SMU’s QuarkNet program.

QuarkNet is a physics teacher development program funded by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy in universities and laboratories across the country. SMU’s QuarkNet program, which began in 2000, also provides research opportunities to high school students like Fritz and Barton, who are seniors at Lake Highlands High School in Richardson ISD.

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Tags Dedman College, Dominik Fritz, Farley Ferrante, Jason Barton, Ken Taylor, Robert Kehoe, SMU Department of Physics

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Eclipsing binary stars discovered by high school students at SMU summer research program

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date August 20, 2014

Treasures of the night sky: Pairs of stars orbit around each other so closely their outer atmospheres touch, so they dim and brighten.

Artist's impression of an eclipsing binary star system. As the two stars orbit each other they pass in front of one another and their combined brightness, seen from a distance, decreases. — Artist’s impression of an eclipsing binary star system. The stars pass in front of one another and their combined brightness decreases. (Credit: European Southern Observatory)

Two Dallas high school students discovered five stars as members of an SMU summer physics research program that enabled them to analyze data gleaned from a high-powered telescope in the New Mexico desert.

Lake Highlands High School seniors Dominik Fritz and Jason Barton are the first high school researchers at SMU to discover new stars.

Their discoveries have been accepted into the American Association of Variable Star Observers International Variable Star Index (VSX).

New discoveries in Pegasus, Ursa Major are registered with Variable Star Index

The stars are located in the northern sky constellations of Pegasus and Ursa Major, but can’t be seen by the naked eye.

Lake Highlands High School student Dominik Fritz and teacher Ken Taylor at SMU. Fritz participated in Quarknet, a Dedman Physics program for area high school students. (Photo Credit here) — Lake Highlands High School student Dominik Fritz and teacher Ken Taylor at SMU. Fritz participated in Quarknet, an SMU Physics Department program for area high school students. (Photo Credit here)

Working in a campus science building basement laboratory, the students used analysis software, perseverance and patience to parse the data collected (but never analyzed for the purpose of studying binary stars) in 2000 by Robert Kehoe, SMU associate professor of physics.

Kehoe collected the data through ROTSE-I, a prototype robotic telescope at Los Alamos, New Mexico.

“Scientists are driven by the sense of discovery,” says Kehoe, who took the data originally to study gamma ray bursts. “These students can lay claim to information that didn’t exist before their research.”

SMU only university in North Texas offering the nation’s QuarkNet program
Fritz and Barton are among nine high school students and two high school physics teachers conducting physics research at SMU through the QuarkNet program.

QuarkNet is a physics teacher development program with 50 centers at U.S. universities and national laboratories. Funded by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy, the program gives teachers and students opportunities to learn about the most recent discoveries in physics.

Other sponsors include two of the world’s leading high-energy physics research centers — CERN in Switzerland and Fermilab in Illinois. SMU is one of four Texas universities to offer the QuarkNet program and the only QuarkNet university in North Texas.

“High school physics curriculum includes very little modern physics,” says Simon Dalley, a member of the SMU physics faculty and coordinator of its QuarkNet program. “This hurts recruitment to the field and prevents the general population from understanding physics’ contribution to the modern world.”

Ken Taylor, Lake Highlands High School physics teacher, is determined to introduce new physics research to his students. He has participated in QuarkNet at SMU since 2000, seizing opportunities to join physics researchers at high-energy particle colliders at CERN and Fermilab. This is the first summer he has selected students to join him in physics research at SMU.

“I like to support students beyond the classroom walls,” he says. “These students have gone through the whole process of scientific discovery and can use these projects as jumping off points for the next phases of their lives.”

With acceptance into the VSX catalog of variable stars, the students’ names are forever linked with their stars on the official registry.

But instead of creating new star names, star discoverers follow a protocol that includes the name of the telescope and the stellar coordinates.

Dominik Fritz discovered ROTSE1 J115128.40+493130.5, ROTSE1 J120809.03+503321.7 and ROTSE1 J232109.31+170125.6.

Jason Barton can include his stars, ROTSE1 J223452.37+175210.5 and ROTSE1 J223707.20+212657.9, on his resume.

Both students plan to pursue science careers, Fritz in nuclear engineering and Barton in medicine.

Other student QuarkNet researchers include KeShawn Ivory from Garland High School and Madison Monzingo and Lane Toungate from Lake Highlands High School. In addition, Hockaday School teacher Leon de Oliveira and his four students – Eliza Cope, Allison Aldrich, Sarah Zhou and Mary Zhong — also conducted QuarkNet research this summer.

“These students have made a real contribution to science,” says Farley Ferrante, the former high school physics teacher and current SMU astrophysics graduate student who supervised the students’ research. “A better understanding of variable stars helps us to understand the age and formation of the universe; the sun, which is a variable star; and even the possibility of extra-terrestrial life.”

Tags Dedman College, Dominik Fritz, Farley Ferrante, Ken Taylor, Robert Kehoe, SMU Department of Physics

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Houston Chronicle: Texas scientists spot 12-billion-year old star explosion

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date June 8, 2014

“You’re looking at things a long time ago in the universe, you can get a sense for the movie of the universe,” said Kehoe. “It’s the evolution of the universe.”

The Texas newspaper the Houston Chronicle covered the astronomy research of physicist Robert Kehoe, SMU professor, and two graduate students in the SMU Department of Physics, Farley Ferrante and Govinda Dhungana.

The astronomy team in May reported observation of intense light from the enormous explosion of a star more than 12 billion years ago — shortly after the Big Bang — that recently reached Earth and was visible in the sky.

Known as a gamma-ray burst, light from the rare, high-energy explosion traveled for 12.1 billion years before it was detected and observed by a telescope, ROTSE-IIIb, owned by SMU.

Recorded as GRB 140419A by NASA’s Gamma-ray Coordinates Network, the burst was spotted at 11 p.m. April 19 by SMU’s robotic telescope at the McDonald Observatory in the Davis Mountains of West Texas.

Houston Chronicle reporter Heather Alexander reported the news in his article “Texas scientists spot 12-billion-year old star explosion.”

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By Heather Alexander
Houston Chronicle

Texas scientists have spotted a massive explosion in space that dates back 12 billion years, almost to the time of the Big Bang, according to Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

NASA satellites recorded the burst and signalled back to the McDonald Observatory in West Texas. Telescope pictures showed a gamma ray burst, believed to be the collapse of a star.

“Gamma-ray bursts are the most powerful explosions in the universe since the Big Bang,” said graduate student Farley Ferrante, who was monitoring the telescope. “These bursts release more energy in 10 seconds than our Earth’s sun during its entire expected lifespan of 10 billion years.”

The scientists said explosions like this are key to understanding the development of the universe.

“Twelve billion years ago, it was a very different universe,” said Robert Kehoe, physics professor and leader of the SMU astronomy team. “It was just hydrogen and helium. There were no rocks, there was no matter; our solar system had not formed.”

Kehoe says explosions like the one shown in the photo are stars exploding, scattering new elements like carbon, oxygen, silicon and iron into the surrounding area.

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SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.

SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.

Tags Dedman College, Farley Ferrante, Govinda Dhungana, Robert Kehoe, SMU Department of Physics

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Digital Journal: Scientists spot 12-billion-year-old star burst

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date June 8, 2014

A star exploded billions of years back, but the light of this explosion has just reached the earth, allowing scientists to peep into the past of the universe

The news web site digitaljournal.com covered the astronomy research of physicist Robert Kehoe, SMU professor, and two graduate students in the SMU Department of Physics, Farley Ferrante and Govinda Dhungana.

Known as a gamma-ray burst, light from the rare, high-energy explosion traveled for 12.1 billion years before it was detected and observed by a telescope, ROTSE-IIIb, owned by SMU.

Digitaljournal.com reporter Sonia D’Costa reported the news in her article “Scientists spot 12-billion-year-old star burst.”

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By Sonia D’Costa
digitaljournal.com

A star exploded billions of years back, but the light of this explosion has just reached the earth, allowing scientists to peep into the past of the universe and figure out what it might have been like during the earliest stages of its development.

The light was observed through a telescope at the McDonald Observatory at Fort Davis in Texas. Called a gamma-ray burst, this stellar explosion is believed to have taken place just after the Big Bang, over 12 billion years in the past.

Farley Ferrante, a physics student at the Southern Methodist University (SMU), which owns the telescope, said: “Gamma-ray bursts are the most powerful explosions in the universe since the Big Bang. These bursts release more energy in 10 seconds than our Earth’s sun during its entire expected lifespan of 10 billion years.”

Read the full story.

Follow SMUResearch.com on Twitter.

For more information, www.smuresearch.com.

SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.

Tags Dedman College, Farley Ferrante, Govinda Dhungana, Robert Kehoe, SMU Department of Physics

Earth & Climate Energy & Matter Researcher news SMU In The News

Global Post: Light from this 12-billion-year-old explosion just reached Earth

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date June 7, 2014

To put the age of the latest discovery into context, scientists believe the Big Bang occurred 13.81 billion years ago.

The news service Global Post covered the astronomy research of physicist Robert Kehoe, SMU professor, and two graduate students in the SMU Department of Physics, Farley Ferrante and Govinda Dhungana.

Known as a gamma-ray burst, light from the rare, high-energy explosion traveled for 12.1 billion years before it was detected and observed by a telescope, ROTSE-IIIb, owned by SMU.

Global Post reporter Sarah Wolfe reported the news in his article “Light from this 12-billion-year-old explosion just reached Earth.”

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By Sarah Wolfe
Global Post

It took 12 billion years, but light from a massive explosion that occurred shortly after the Big Bang has just reached Earth.

The rare gamma-ray burst could help scientists understand more about the early universe.

Recorded as GRB 140423A, the explosion was first observed in April by the telescope Rotse-IIIB at an observatory in western Texas owned by Southern Methodist University.

The area of the explosion’s peak afterglow, circled in blue and yellow, can be seen in the image above. A bright star sits to its left.

Gamma-ray bursts are believed to be the catastrophic collapse of a star at the end of its life.

“As NASA points out, gamma-ray bursts are the most powerful explosions in the universe since the Big Bang,” Farley Ferrante, a graduate student at Southern Methodist University who monitored the explosions with astronomers in Hawaii and Turkey, said in a release from the university.

“These bursts release more energy in 10 seconds than our Earth’s sun during its entire expected lifespan of 10 billion years.”

Scientists weren’t even able to detect visual light from gamma-ray bursts until technology improved in the late 1990s. Gamma rays have the shortest wavelengths and can only be seen using special detectors.

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Tags Dedman College, Farley Ferrante, Govinda Dhungana, Robert Kehoe, SMU Department of Physics

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CBS News: See an exploding star from 12 billion years ago

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date June 7, 2014

Armed with images of the burst, astronomers can now analyze the data in order to understand more about the structure of the universe at its infancy

CBS News covered the astronomy research of physicist Robert Kehoe, SMU professor, and two graduate students in the SMU Department of Physics, Farley Ferrante and Govinda Dhungana.

Known as a gamma-ray burst, light from the rare, high-energy explosion traveled for 12.1 billion years before it was detected and observed by a telescope, ROTSE-IIIb, owned by SMU.

CBS News reporter Hani Shawwa reported the news in his article “See an exploding star from 12 billion years ago.”

Read the full story.

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By Hani Shawwa
CBS News

It took billions of years for the light of this cosmic explosion to reach Earth, and now it’s offering scientists a rare glimpse of the universe at one of its earliest stages.

A McDonald Observatory telescope in Fort Davis, Texas captured the image of a gamma-ray burst — the enormous explosion of a star, which took place more than 12 billion years ago, shortly after the Big Bang.

“Gamma-ray bursts are the most powerful explosions in the universe since the Big Bang. These bursts release more energy in 10 seconds than our Earth’s sun during its entire expected lifespan of 10 billion years,” said Farley Ferrante, a graduate student at Southern Methodist University’s Department of Physics, who monitored the explosion along with two astronomers in Turkey and Hawaii.

The phenomenon is not well understood by astronomers, but it is believed to be the result of a catastrophic collapse of a star at the end of its life.

“Gamma-ray bursts may be particularly massive cousins to supernovae… By studying them, we learn about supernovae,” said Robert Kehoe, physics professor and leader of the SMU astronomy team.

The photo was snapped in mid-April and released this week.

Scientists weren’t able to detect optical light from gamma-ray bursts until the late 1990s, when telescope technology improved.

Among all lights in the electromagnetic spectrum, gamma rays have the shortest wavelengths and are visible only using special detectors.

Read the full story.

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Daily Mail: Huge 12 billion-year-old explosion in space has been spotted from Earth – and it could reveal secrets of the early universe

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date June 6, 2014

Armed with images of the burst, astronomers can now analyze the data in order to understand more about the structure of the universe at its infancy

The U.K.’s widely read newspaper the Daily Mail covered the astronomy research of physicist Robert Kehoe, SMU professor, and two graduate students in the SMU Department of Physics, Farley Ferrante and Govinda Dhungana.

Known as a gamma-ray burst, light from the rare, high-energy explosion traveled for 12.1 billion years before it was detected and observed by a telescope, ROTSE-IIIb, owned by SMU.
Gamma-ray bursts are believed to be the catastrophic collapse of a star at the end of its life. SMU physicists report that their telescope was the first on the ground to observe the burst and to capture an image.

Daily Mail reporter Jonathan O’Callaghan reported the news in his article “Huge 12 billion-year-old explosion in space has been spotted from Earth – and it could reveal secrets of the early universe.”

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By Jonathan O’Callaghan
Daily Mail

One of the biggest and hottest explosions in the universe – a rare event known as a gamma-ray burst (GRB) – has been spotted on camera.

And this particular event, caused by the enormous explosions of a star, occurred shortly after the Big Bang about 12.1 billion years ago.

The intense light recently reached Earth and it could give astronomers useful information about the conditions in the young universe.

Gamma-ray bursts are believed to be the catastrophic collapse of a star at the end of its life.

The observation was made by the telescope Rotse-IIIB at the McDonald Observatory in the Davis Mountains of West Texas, owned by the Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas.

SMU physicists report that their telescope was the first on the ground to observe the burst, and to capture an image.

This particular explosion, first spotted back in April, was recorded as GRB 140419A by Nasa’s Gamma-ray Coordinates Network (GCN).

Gamma-ray bursts are not well understood by astronomers, but they are considered important, according to Farley Ferrante, a graduate student in SMU’s Department of Physics, who monitored the observations along with two astronomers in Turkey and Hawaii.

‘As Nasa points out, gamma-ray bursts are the most powerful explosions in the universe since the Big Bang,’ he said.

‘These bursts release more energy in 10 seconds than our Earth’s sun during its entire expected lifespan of 10 billion years.’

Some of these GRBs appear to be related to supernovae and correspond to the end-of-life of a massive star, said Dr Robert Kehoe, physics professor and leader of the SMU astronomy team.

‘Gamma-ray bursts may be particularly massive cousins to supernovae, or may correspond to cases in which the explosion ejecta are more beamed in our direction. By studying them, we learn about supernovae,’ Kehoe said.

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Observed by Texas telescope: Light from huge explosion 12 billion years ago reaches Earth

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date June 3, 2014

Known as a gamma-ray burst, the intense light captured in the night sky resulted from one of the biggest and hottest explosions in the universe, occurring shortly after the Big Bang.

Intense light from the enormous explosion of a star more than 12 billion years ago — shortly after the Big Bang — recently reached Earth and was visible in the sky.

Known as a gamma-ray burst, light from the rare, high-energy explosion traveled for 12.1 billion years before it was detected and observed by a telescope, ROTSE-IIIb, owned by Southern Methodist University, Dallas.

Gamma-ray bursts are believed to be the catastrophic collapse of a star at the end of its life. SMU physicists report that their telescope was the first on the ground to observe the burst and to capture an image, said Farley Ferrante, a graduate student in SMU’s Department of Physics, who monitored the observations along with two astronomers in Turkey and Hawaii.

Gamma-ray burst 1404191 was spotted at 11 p.m. on April 19 by SMU's robotic ROTSE-IIIb telescope at McDonald Observatory, Fort Davis, Texas. — Gamma-ray burst 1404191 was spotted at 11 p.m. April 19 by SMU’s robotic ROTSE-IIIb telescope at McDonald Observatory, Fort Davis, Texas.

Gamma-ray bursts are not well understood by astronomers, but they are considered important, Ferrante said.

“As NASA points out, gamma-ray bursts are the most powerful explosions in the universe since the Big Bang,” he said. “These bursts release more energy in 10 seconds than our Earth’s sun during its entire expected lifespan of 10 billion years.”

Some of these gamma-ray bursts appear to be related to supernovae, and correspond to the end-of-life of a massive star, said Robert Kehoe, physics professor and leader of the SMU astronomy team.

“Gamma-ray bursts may be particularly massive cousins to supernovae, or may correspond to cases in which the explosion ejecta are more beamed in our direction. By studying them, we learn about supernovae,” Kehoe said.

Scientists weren’t able to detect optical light from gamma-ray bursts until the late 1990s, when telescope technology improved. Among all lights in the electromagnetic spectrum, gamma rays have the shortest wavelengths and are visible only using special detectors.

Gamma-ray bursts result from hot stars that measure as enormous as 50 solar masses. The explosion occurs when the stars run out of fuel and collapse in on themselves, forming black holes.

The ROTSE-IIIb robotic telescope at McDonald Observatory, Fort Davis, Texas. (Photo: McDonald Observatory)

Outer layers detonate, shooting out material along the rotation axis in powerful, high-energy jets that include gamma radiation.

As the gamma radiation declines, the explosion produces an afterglow of visible optical light. The light, in turn, fades very quickly, said Kehoe. Physicists calculate the distance of the explosion based on the shifting wavelength of the light, or redshift.

“The optical light is visible for anywhere from a few seconds to a few hours,” Kehoe said. “Sometimes optical telescopes can capture the spectra. This allows us to calculate the redshift of the light, which tells us how fast the light is moving away from us. This is an indirect indication of the distance from us.”

Observational data from gamma-ray bursts allows scientists to understand structure of the early universe
To put into context the age of the new gamma-ray burst discoveries, Kehoe and Ferrante point out that the Big Bang occurred 13.81 billion years ago. GRB 140419A is at a red shift of 3.96, Ferrante said.

“That means that GRB 140419A exploded about 12.1 billion years ago,” he said, “which is only about one-and-a-half billion years after the universe began. That is really old.”

Armed with images of the burst, astronomers can analyze the observational data to draw further conclusions about the structure of the early universe.

“At the time of this gamma-ray burst’s explosion, the universe looked vastly different than it does now,” Kehoe said. “It was an early stage of galaxy formation. There weren’t heavy elements to make Earth-like planets. So this is a glimpse at the early universe. Observing gamma-ray bursts is important for gaining information about the early universe.”

GRB 140419A’s brightness, measured by its ability to be seen by someone on Earth, was of the 12th magnitude, Kehoe said, indicating it was only 10 times dimmer than what is visible through binoculars, and only 200 times dimmer than the human eye can see, Kehoe said.

“The difference in brightness is about the same as between the brightest star you can see in the sky, and the dimmest you can see with the naked eye on a clear, dark night,” Kehoe said. “Considering this thing was at the edge of the visible universe, that’s an extreme explosion. That was something big. Really big.”

SMU telescope responded to NASA satellite’s detection and notification
SMU’s Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment (ROTSE) IIIb is a robotic telescope. It is part of a network of ground telescopes responsive to a NASA satellite that is central to the space agency’s Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission. Images of the gamma-ray bursts are at http://bit.ly/1kKZeh5.

When the Swift satellite detects a gamma-ray burst, it instantly relays the location. Telescopes around the world, such as SMU’s ROTSE-IIIb, swing into action to observe the burst’s afterglow and capture images, said Govinda Dhungana, an SMU graduate student who participated in the gamma-ray burst research.

SMU’s ROTSE-IIIb observes optical emission from several gamma-ray bursts each year. It observed GRB 140419A just 55 seconds after the burst was detected by Swift.

Just days later, ROTSE-IIIb observed and reported a second rare and distant gamma-ray burst, GRB 140423A, at 3:30 a.m. April 23. The redshift of that burst corresponds to a look back in time of 11.8 billion years. ROTSE-IIIb observed it 51 seconds after the burst was detected by Swift.

“We have the brightest detection and the earliest response on both of those because our telescope is fully robotic and no human hands were involved,” Ferrante said.

Ferrante, the first to check observations on GRB 140423A, is first-author on that gamma-ray burst. Tolga Guver, associate professor in the Department of Astronomy and Space Sciences at Istanbul University, Turkey, is second author. On GRB 140419A, Guver is first author and Ferrante is second.

The research is funded by the Texas Space Grant Consortium, an affiliate of NASA. — Margaret Allen

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UPI: Cosmic explosions give dark energy clues

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date March 4, 2013

The international news wire service United Press International has covered the SMU Physics Department’s recent supernovae discoveries. The article, “Cosmic explosions give dark energy clues,” was published Feb. 27. Light from two massive stars that exploded hundreds of millions of years ago recently reached Earth, and each event was identified as a supernova by SMU graduate students in the physics department.

Both supernovae were spotted with the Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment‘s robotic telescope ROTSE3b, which is now operated by SMU graduate students. ROTSE3b is at the McDonald Observatory in the Davis Mountains of West Texas near Fort Davis.

The Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams of the International Astronomical Union officially designated the discoveries as Supernova 2013X and Supernova 2012ha.

Ferrante and Dhungana made both discoveries as part of an international collaboration of physicists from nine universities. Everest and Sherpa were discovered with a fully automated, remotely controlled robotic telescope at the University of Texas’ McDonald Observatory. The discovery is a first for the SMU collaboration members.

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DALLAS, Feb. 27 (UPI) — Light from exploding stars is improving the astronomical “yardstick” used to calculate the acceleration of the expansion of the universe, U.S. scientists say.

The light from two supernovae, massive stars that exploded hundreds of millions of years ago, has recently reached Earth, Southern Methodist University researchers said.

A supernova discovered Feb. 6 exploded about 450 million years ago, while a second supernova discovered Nov. 20 exploded about 230 million years ago, Farley Ferrante, an SMU graduate student who made the initial Feb. 6 observation, said.

Both are Type 1a supernovae, the result of white dwarf explosions, he said.

“We call these Type 1a supernovae standard candles,” Ferrante said. “Since Type 1a supernovae begin from this standard process, their intrinsic brightness is very similar. So they become a device by which scientists can measure cosmic distance.”

Type 1a supernova provide astronomers with indirect information about dark energy, which makes up 73 percent of the mass-energy in the universe and is theorized as being responsible for the accelerating expansion of our universe at various times after the Big Bang.

“Every exploding star observed allows astronomers to more precisely calibrate the increasing speed at which our universe is expanding,” Ferrante said. “The older the explosion, the farther away, the closer it was to the Big Bang and the better it helps us understand dark energy.”

See the article.

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SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.

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ANI News: Exploding stars offer clues to dark energy

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date March 4, 2013

The Asian news wire service Asian News International has covered the SMU Physics Department’s recent supernovae discoveries. The article, “Exploding stars offer clues to dark energy,” was published Feb. 28. Light from two massive stars that exploded hundreds of millions of years ago recently reached Earth, and each event was identified as a supernova by SMU graduate students in the physics department.

The Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams of the International Astronomical Union officially designated the discoveries as Supernova 2013X and Supernova 2012ha.

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Washington, February 28 (ANI): Observation of two bright exploding stars is improving the astronomical “tape measure” used to calculate the acceleration of the expansion of the universe, say scientists.

Light from two massive stars that exploded hundreds of millions of years ago recently reached Earth, and each event was identified as a supernova, Southern Methodist University scientists said.

A supernova discovered Feb. 6 exploded about 450 million years ago, said Farley Ferrante, a graduate student at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, who made the initial observation.

The exploding star is in a relatively empty portion of the sky labeled “anonymous” in the faint constellation Canes Venatici. Home to a handful of galaxies, Canes Venatici is near the constellation Ursa Major , best known for the Big Dipper.

A second supernova discovered Nov. 20 exploded about 230 million years ago, said Ferrante, who made the initial observation. That exploding star is in one of the many galaxies of the Virgo constellation.

Both supernovae were spotted with the Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment’s robotic telescope ROTSE3b, which is now operated by SMU graduate students. ROTSE3b is at the McDonald Observatory in the Davis Mountains of West Texas near Fort Davis.

The supernova that exploded about 450 million years ago is officially designated Supernova 2013X. It occurred when life on Earth consisted of creatures in the seas and oceans and along coastlines. Following naming conventions for supernova, Supernova 2013X was nicknamed “Everest” by Govinda Dhungana, an SMU graduate student who participated in the discovery.

The supernova that exploded about 230 million years ago is officially designated Supernova 2012ha. The light from that explosion has been en route to Earth since the Triassic geologic period, when dinosaurs roamed the planet.

“That’s fairly recent as these explosions go,” Ferrante said.

Dhungana gave the nickname “Sherpa” to Supernova 2012ha.

Everest and Sherpa are two of about 200 supernovae discovered worldwide in a given year, according to the scientists.

“Everest and Sherpa aren’t noteworthy for being the youngest, oldest, closest, furthest or biggest supernovae ever observed. But both, like other supernovae of their kind, are important because they provide us with information for further science,” Ferrante said.

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redOrbit: Astronomers Discover White Dwarf Supernovae

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date March 1, 2013

The news web site redOrbit has covered the SMU Physics Department’s recent supernovae discoveries. The article, “Astronomers Discover White Dwarf Supernovae,” was published Feb. 27. Light from two massive stars that exploded hundreds of millions of years ago recently reached Earth, and each event was identified as a supernova by SMU graduate students in the physics department.

The Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams of the International Astronomical Union officially designated the discoveries as Supernova 2013X and Supernova 2012ha.

Read the full article.

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By Lee Rannals
redOrbit.com
White dwarf supernovae that occurred millions of years ago have popped up in the Virgo Cluster galaxy and part of the sky labelled as “anonymous.”

Southern Methodist University (SMU) researchers say they’ve confirmed two bright stars that showed up in our skies in February and November are supernovae. Supernovae are the result of stars that have reached the end of their life, resulting in a large explosion that can consume anything in its path.

In November, Farley Ferrante, a graduate student at SMU, made the initial observation of a supernova, Supernova 2012ha or “Sherpa,” that derived from the Virgo constellation, about 230 million light years away. Another supernova, Supernova 2013X or “Everest,” was discovered on February 6, sitting 450 million years away in a part of the sky labeled “animus” near the faint constellation Canes Venatici.

“Everest and Sherpa aren’t noteworthy for being the youngest, oldest, closest, furthest or biggest supernovae ever observed,” Ferrante said. “But both, like other supernovae of their kind, are important because they provide us with information for further science.”

Both supernovae are considered Type 1a, which are the result of white dwarf explosions. A white dwarf star has a mass comparable to that of the Sun and its core is a comparable size to that of the Earth. According to Robert Kehoe, physics professor and leader of the SMU astronomy team in the SMU Department of Physics, a teaspoon of a white dwarf star would weigh about as much as Mount Everest.

When a white dwarf heads towards the end of its life, it grows to about one and a half times the size of the sun and eventually collapses and explodes, resulting in a Type 1a supernova.

“We call these Type 1a supernovae standard candles,” Ferrante said. “Since Type 1a supernovae begin from this standard process, their intrinsic brightness is very similar. So they become a device by which scientists can measure cosmic distance. From Earth, we measure the light intensity of the exploded star. As star distances from Earth increase, their brilliance diminishes.”

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White dwarf supernovae are discovered in Virgo Cluster galaxy and in sky area “anonymous”

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date February 26, 2013

Observation of two bright exploding stars improves the astronomical “tape measure” that scientists use to calculate the acceleration of the expansion of the universe

Light from two massive stars that exploded hundreds of millions of years ago recently reached Earth, and each event was identified as a supernova.

A supernova discovered Feb. 6 exploded about 450 million years ago, said Farley Ferrante, a graduate student at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, who made the initial observation.

The exploding star is in a relatively empty portion of the sky labeled “anonymous” in the faint constellation Canes Venatici. Home to a handful of galaxies, Canes Venatici is near the constellation Ursa Major, best known for the Big Dipper.

Reidus hilli, John Graf, SMU, coelacanth, Dipluridae,

A second supernova discovered Nov. 20 exploded about 230 million years ago, said Ferrante, who made the initial observation. That exploding star is in one of the many galaxies of the Virgo constellation.

The supernova that exploded about 450 million years ago is officially designated Supernova 2013X. It occurred when life on Earth consisted of creatures in the seas and oceans and along coastlines. Following naming conventions for supernova, Supernova 2013X was nicknamed “Everest” by Govinda Dhungana, an SMU graduate student who participated in the discovery.

The supernova that exploded about 230 million years ago is officially designated Supernova 2012ha. The light from that explosion has been en route to Earth since the Triassic geologic period, when dinosaurs roamed the planet. “That’s fairly recent as these explosions go,” Ferrante said. Dhungana gave the nickname “Sherpa” to Supernova 2012ha.

Type 1a supernovae help measure cosmic distances
Everest and Sherpa are two of about 200 supernovae discovered worldwide in a given year. Before telescopes, supernovae observations were rare — sometimes only several every few centuries, according to the scientists.

“Everest and Sherpa aren’t noteworthy for being the youngest, oldest, closest, furthest or biggest supernovae ever observed,” Ferrante said. “But both, like other supernovae of their kind, are important because they provide us with information for further science.”

Everest and Sherpa are Type 1a supernovae, the result of white dwarf explosions, said Robert Kehoe, physics professor and leader of the SMU astronomy team in the SMU Department of Physics.

The scientists explain that a white dwarf is a dying star that has burned up all its energy. It is about as massive as the Earth’s sun. It’s core is about the size of the Earth. The core is dense, however, and one teaspoon of it weighs as much as Mount Everest, Kehoe said.

A white dwarf explodes if fusion restarts by tugging material from a nearby star, according to the scientists. The white dwarf grows to about one and a half times the size of the sun. Unable to support its weight, Kehoe said, collapse is rapid, fusion reignites and the white dwarf explodes. The result is a Type 1a supernova.

“We call these Type 1a supernovae standard candles,” Ferrante said. “Since Type 1a supernovae begin from this standard process, their intrinsic brightness is very similar. So they become a device by which scientists can measure cosmic distance. From Earth, we measure the light intensity of the exploded star. As star distances from Earth increase, their brilliance diminishes.”

While Sherpa is a standard Type 1a, Everest is peculiar. It exhibits the characteristics of a Type 1a called a 1991T, Ferrante said.

“Everest is the result of two white dwarfs that collide, then merge,” he said.

The brightness of Sherpa’s explosion was a magnitude 16, which is far dimmer than can be seen with the naked eye. Everest’s explosion was even dimmer, a magnitude 18.

For perspective, light travels 5.88 trillion miles in a year. The sun is 93 million miles from Earth, so light from the sun reaches Earth in eight minutes.

Supernovae help in search to understand mysterious dark energy
Like other Type 1a supernovae, Everest and Sherpa provide scientists with a tiny piece to the puzzle of one of the greatest mysteries of the universe: What is dark energy?

Every Type 1a supernova provides astronomers with indirect information about dark energy, which makes up 73 percent of the mass-energy in the universe. It’s theorized that dark energy explains the accelerating expansion of our universe at various epochs after the Big Bang.

“Every exploding star observed allows astronomers to more precisely calibrate the increasing speed at which our universe is expanding,” Ferrante said. “The older the explosion, the farther away, the closer it was to the Big Bang and the better it helps us understand dark energy.”

Hobby-Eberly spectrogram confirms discovery of supernovae
Everest’s discovery was confirmed by a spectrogram obtained Feb. 10 with the Hobby-Eberly Telescope, also at McDonald Observatory. Everest is located in a host galaxy identified as 2286144 in the Principal Galaxies Catalog.

A spectrogram obtained Nov. 29 with the Hobby-Eberly Telescope confirmed Sherpa’s discovery in one of the many galaxies of the Virgo Cluster.

The Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams of the International Astronomical Union officially designated the discoveries as Supernova 2013X and Supernova 2012ha.

The telescope, ROTSE, constantly scans the skies for any significant changes, such as supernovae, novae and variable stars. Data from the telescope are reviewed daily by Ferrante, Dhungana and other scientists on the team, who search for signs of stellar activity.

Until now, primary responsibility for the management and operation of ROTSE3b was held by the University of Michigan. The SMU team took over that responsibility starting in Fall 2012. The ownership transfer will be completed by summer 2013, said SMU’s Kehoe.

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This newly-discovered variable is one of only seven of its kind known in our galaxy.

A star — as big as or bigger than our sun — in the Pegasus constellation is expanding and contracting in three different directions simultaneously on a scale of once every 2.5 hours, the result of heating and cooling of hydrogen fuel burning 28 million degrees Fahrenheit at its core

Their five stars will be known by 16-digit serial numbers. Dominik would have rather immortalized his four dogs.

Two high school students collected data until they had what they needed to define their star-to-be as a variable — a star that changes brightness.

Treasures of the night sky: Pairs of stars orbit around each other so closely their outer atmospheres touch, so they dim and brighten.

“You’re looking at things a long time ago in the universe, you can get a sense for the movie of the universe,” said Kehoe. “It’s the evolution of the universe.”

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A star exploded billions of years back, but the light of this explosion has just reached the earth, allowing scientists to peep into the past of the universe

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To put the age of the latest discovery into context, scientists believe the Big Bang occurred 13.81 billion years ago.

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Armed with images of the burst, astronomers can now analyze the data in order to understand more about the structure of the universe at its infancy

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Armed with images of the burst, astronomers can now analyze the data in order to understand more about the structure of the universe at its infancy

Known as a gamma-ray burst, the intense light captured in the night sky resulted from one of the biggest and hottest explosions in the universe, occurring shortly after the Big Bang.

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Observation of two bright exploding stars improves the astronomical “tape measure” that scientists use to calculate the acceleration of the expansion of the universe

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