Citizen scientists help find exploding star

A new exploding star was discovered in the night sky, and it was thanks to the help of citizen scientists working with astronomers at the University of Warwick. These citizen scientists are people who are not professional astronomers but are passionate about space and want to help with scientific research. The sky is so vast that even the most advanced telescopes cannot watch every part of it all the time. Sometimes, important events like exploding stars, also called supernovas or cataclysmic events, can be missed if no one is looking at the right spot at the right moment.

To solve this problem, the Kilonova Seekers project was created. This project uses a website where members of the public can look at images of the sky taken on different nights. The task is similar to playing 'spot the difference. ' Volunteers look for anything unusual or different in the pictures. If they find something interesting, they alert the professional astronomers, who can then use their powerful telescopes to investigate further. This week, the project celebrated its first major discovery. The citizen scientists spotted a star that suddenly became 2,500 times brighter over just a few days. This allowed astronomers to study the star at a very early stage, which is rare and valuable. The star was identified as a 'cataclysmic variable star' and was named GOTO0650.

Dr Tom Killestein, a scientist at Warwick and co-leader of the Kilonova Seekers, explained that the volunteers noticed the star only three and a half hours after the image was taken. About eight people flagged the event, which prompted the professionals to focus their attention on it. GOTO0650 is actually a binary star system, meaning it has two stars orbiting each other, surrounded by a disc of material. This material suddenly ignited, causing the bright explosion. Both stars survived, so a similar event could happen again in the future. Interestingly, a similar explosion happened in the 1930s, but it was not noticed at the time. Old photographs of the sky were later digitized and analyzed, revealing the event years after it happened. Thanks to the Kilonova Seekers, such events can now be identified within hours. Dr Killestein also mentioned that while artificial intelligence and machine learning are useful, human eyes are still better at spotting some things. This was the first major event found by the project, which has only been running for a year. The explosion was so bright that about 100 amateur astronomers around the world were able to see it as well. This discovery shows how ordinary people can play a big role in scientific discoveries and help professionals learn more about the universe.