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10-Year-Old Boy Discovers 600-Million-Year-Old Supernova
minty3 writes "Nathan Gray, 10, from Nova Scotia, Canada, recently discovered a 600-million-year-old supernova in the galaxy PGC 61330, which lies in the constellation of Draco – beating his sister by 33 days as the youngest person to find a supernova. Gray made the discovery on October 30 while looking at astronomical images taken by Dave Lane, who runs the Abbey Ridge Observatory (ARO) in Nova Scotia. The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada confirmed Gray's discovery, but astronomers with the International Astronomical Union say they will need to use a larger telescope to make the finding official."
I hope this gets shared widely in school science classes and among the home schooled.
Science is open to people of all ages.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
This sounds like something Leonard Hofstadter's family would do for Christmas. The sister's going to have a terrible "Why did you always have to out do me as kids!!?" Complex.
10-year-old boy gets credit for it.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
I take that back. Slashdot editors simply linked to the old story of his sister, but did so in such a way that I thought the first article was the article that was summarized. The second link is the actual story.
Sure I sold you robot insurance. But you were attacked by a cyborg. Not covered.
Read that as 10-Year-Old Supernova Discovers 600-Million-Year-Old Boy
The 2011 story was about his sister, the more recent story (from today) was about him. And both mention the father as the one who really did the work.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
"You kids need to get away from the telescope and go outside to play!"
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
If you read the story you'll see that in both cases, the kids spotted the candidate and their dad did the work to verify it. Without them spotting the change in brightness there wouldn't have been anything for him to do. Thus, they get credit for finding them and he gets credit for verifying the discovery.
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I love stories like this, if for no other reason to watch nerds who have failed to contribute to society or live up to their potential in any meaningful way justify their smug superiority by tearing down the work of a little kid.
Published on Tue Jan 04 2011
Cool story. Not exactly recent, though.
That is because before publishing, all Slashdot news go through a rigorous fact-checking and quality assurance review, which can take months or years.
And make sure you clean up your toys before going to bed.
From the Wikipedia article on Home Schooling:
This quote, with references, is cited among many studies that note essentially the same thing.
What's that? Did you say something about socialization? From the same article:
I'm sorry, I didn't quite hear your next question: are you talking about costs? From the same article:
)."[...] home educators expend only an average of $500–$600 a year on each student, in comparison to $9,000-$10,000 for each public school student in the United States, which suggests home-educated students would be especially dominant on tests if afforded access to an equal commitment of tax-funded educational resources."
The take-away is that home schooling will give your kids a better chance of having a successful life. Much, *much* better, based on the scores. Another way to think about it is that public schooling impedes and retards your child's development, and makes them less fit to compete in the arena of life.
(Pro tip: ten seconds of research will save you 5 minutes of posting, and as a side-effect prevent you from putting your foot in your mouth.)
No dude, TL DR; Nathan's older sister (Kathryn) found a supernova 2 years ago. He beat her age record by 33 days, 2 days (the second article).
Do I have to explain why the inside of the TARDIS is larger than the outside now?
Instead of being happy for him and his achievement, his sister will probably put boogers on his pillow. He's 10, he probably does that to her anyway.
And well she should! Stupid younger siblings, always getting the same privileges as the older sibling at a younger age because it "wouldn't be fair."
"Hey, Mom and Dad, can use the telescope to break a record for girls in science?
"Sure thing, dear."
"I wanna use it too!"
"Okay, you can go after your sister."
"But Mooooom, you wouldn't let me make any scientific discoveries until I was twelve!"
(Not that I have a grudge or anything!)
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Without his dad having access to a very large telescope, he would not have the images to study. It's not like this is some kid with a backyard telescope actually discovering something. It's also probably likely that the images were probably somewhat filtered by the father (or his computer) to be images likely to contain a supernova.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Actually, if you RTFA, you'd find that the images were emailed to his Dad by various amateur observers so that he (and his family) could look for interesting things such as comets, asteroids, novas and/or supernovas. Not uncommon, actually, because that just shares the workload around.
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You don't need need a large telescope to discover supernovae. A CCD, a decent backyard scope that can take good exposures, and a computer is all you need. And since when does an astronomer need to own the equipment he's using for his work to be taken seriously?
Home school children probably succeed more so because of parent involvement than homeschooling itself. Comparing home schooled children to all of public schools is disingenuous, the demographics won't even come close to aligning.
You're guessing.
We (scientists, that is) have two situations completely described, with strong objective evidence that one is better.
You (anonymous coward on the internet) suggest that it "might" be due to something that furthers your own beliefs.
Cite some studies or shut up. If you think "more studies need to happen", then that's a weak argument: since the original study included almost 12,000 test cases, you'll need a much larger study to show that your assertion is valid, but wasn't shown in the original study due to random chance. Let us know when you're done.
In the mean time, feel free to send your kid to public school. Mine is home-schooled and I want to give him as much of an edge as possible.
No, really: send your kid to public school, do us all a favor. This problem will sort itself out in a generation or two.
"...beating his sister by 33 days as the youngest person to find a supernova."
If he's 33 days younger than his sister, their mom had a rough couple of months.
"10-Year-Old Boy Discovers 600-Million-Year-Old Supernova" is a "Dog Bites Man" story. "600-Million-Year-Old Boy Discovers 10-Year-Old Supernova" would be serious real news. Wow!
In Soviet Galaxy, supernova discovers you.
Table-ized A.I.
Dave Lane, who runs the Abbey Ridge Observatory (ARO) in Nova Scotia took the pictures.
Dad (Paul Gray) set up the computer to align images.
Dad set up the program to flicker the images between two panels.
Dad gave daughter (in 2011) 52 images, she found a discrepancy on the 4th.
Dad gave son some more images this year, he found discrepancy the same way.
In both cases, Dad did the subsequent digging, comparing the data to known bursts, planetismals, etc. and declared what was found a nova.
It's wonderful that these kids have an attraction to astronomy, I wish I'd had a dad that was that interested, but what they did could honestly have been accomplished by a preliterate 4 yr old with a moderate attention span.
Watch two images flicker back and forth. Note differences.
Sorry, but they didn't "discover" supernovas any more than I 'discovered' gravity today by knocking a spoon off the counter.
-Styopa
Did anyone else get a kick out of the photo they chose for that article? I can imagine how that went...
"Hmmm, we're shooting for an article about finding a supernova...I know, point to it!"
"This this?...THERE IT IS!"
The socialization that occurs in public schools doesn't necessarily prepare students for the type of socialization they will experience in the adult world. In (too) many cases, students the socialization learned in public schools is actually detrimental and must be unlearned.
Also, it's not like home schooled children grow up in a bubble. From what I've seen and read, they usually participate in sports leagues, orchestra or marching band and other clubs.
The best public schools are probably better overall than home schooling, but far too many do more harm than good.
To be clear, I attended a decent public school.
I really cannot believe the "garbage" that is getting posted here as comments to this news item. And no, I'm not just a "reader" ... I am part of the story as it is my backyear observatory that provides the images, both for Nathan and for his sister Kathryn and before that for others. We have discovered 5 in total. Providing opportunities for youth in science is one of the things I do - in this way and in many others ways (but principally through astronomy.
What have you done today with your energy for the betteremnt of future scientists and technology professionals? (oh, of course, you trashed an achievement made by a bright kid that through this attention will probably have a brighter future, despite the critics.
--- Dave Lane
The summarized story includes an old link to a new story about Nathan sister discovering her first in January 2011. Just google "nathan gray" supernova for better coverage of the current story. --- Dave Lane, Abbey Ridge Obs
In a galaxy far, far away, somebody else's kid probably saw it first.
"The last supernova in our galaxy occurred several hundred years ago." If that were true, we'd would not have detected it yet. If we had, we'd all be dead. Think about it.
On April 23, 2020 Jacqueline Carnot discovered a supernova in the constellation Draco, nicknamed "the Dragon's Egg."
In an interesting temporal distortion, a 10-year-old astronomer confirmed this discovery on October 30, 2013.
Ms. Carnot was depicted in Robert L. Forward's fictionalization of the event in the book Dragon's Egg.
Scientists are still waiting to confirm that the supernova created a neutron star which supports life and is on a trajectory to pass close to our sun.