Students Discover Rare Supernova with Help of UMass Lowell Telescope and Global Collaboration

In a galaxy far, far away, 21 million lightyears from Earth, a star with a mass at least eight times larger than our sun exploded, creating a supernova. The explosion occurred when the star, located in the Pinwheel Galaxy, ran out of nuclear fuel and collapsed. This rare phenomenon was discovered by Japanese astronomer Koichi Itagaki in May 2023, sparking interest from scientists around the world who sought to study it.

Among those intrigued by the supernova were three UMass Lowell undergraduates: Jacob Medin, Ian Davis, and Jordan Orenberg. These physics majors were funded by the Kennedy College of Sciences’ Science Discoveries program to study the supernova during the summer after their first year of college. Under the guidance of Physics Assoc. Prof. Silas Laycock and assistance from Physics Ph.D. student Sayantan Bhattacharya ’21, they learned how to operate the UMass Lowell Schueller Observatory’s powerful telescope to capture images of the supernova.

The students collaborated with the nonprofit organization Amateur Telescope Makers of Boston to obtain more images of the supernova as well as other observatories around the world for a more comprehensive study of this event. They then used AstroImageJ, a software for analyzing astronomical photos, to upload and analyze their data collected over several months. They tracked the magnitude of the supernova by observing its brightness and temperature changes during that time frame.

Jordan Orenberg expressed his excitement at contributing to understanding supernovas and sharing their data with others through collaboration with other researchers worldwide. Through their research and collaboration efforts