The little supernova
Stories from Physics
for 11-14
14-16
In 2008, one of the faintest supernovae ever recorded was detected by a 14-year-old amateur astronomer. Caroline Moore, from upstate New York, used a small telescope to image an unusual astronomical explosion which was a thousand times less powerful than a supernova (the destructive death of a star) but a thousand times more powerful than a nova (a release of energy from material accreted from a white dwarf in a binary system). A number of models have been proposed for the phenomenon including the collapse of a massive star into a black hole with limited radiation of energy.
References
The little supernova
Peculiar, Junior-Sized Supernova Discovered by New York Teen. Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics Website, 10th June, 2009, https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/2009-14