SN 2011fe

PTF 11kly is a supernova star, discovered by the Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) survey.

The star is located in the Pinwheel Galaxy of the Big Dipper, and was captured as it began to form a supernova on August the 22nd, when it was approximately million times less visible than can be detected by the naked eye.

Discovery

It was discovered by the PTF, which uses telescopes to scan the sky, feeding information to the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC)at Berkeley Lab, which computes the information to identify new star events. After the initial observation event, telescopes were used in the Canary Islands (Spain) to identify spectra of the event. Following this, the Hubble Space Telescope, the Lick Observatory in California, and the Keck Observatory in Hawaii were used to identify it in greater detail.

Supernova event

Because it is the earliest supernova event of its type to identified as it occurs, and is located only 21 lightyears from earth the PTF 11kly supernova has been described as

According to Peter Nugent of the Lawrence Berekely National Laboratory, it is "the youngest Type Ia ever observed".

External links

Nature: Nearby supernova may illuminate dark energy puzzle Berkeley Scientists Discover an “Instant Cosmic Classic” Supernova USA Today: Nearby supernova blooms into view