Contact: Margaret Allen
mallen@smu.edu
214-768-7664
Southern Methodist University

White Dwarf Supernovae Discovered in Virgo Cluster, Sky Area 'Anonymous'

Caption: Light from two massive stars that exploded hundreds of millions of years ago recently reached Earth, and each was identified as a supernova by researchers at Southern Methodist University, Dallas. One exploded about 450 million years ago, and the other about 230 million years ago, said physics grad student Farley Ferrante, who made the initial observations. Both supernovae were spotted by the Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment’s ROTSE3b at McDonald Observatory near Fort Davis, Texas. Higher resolution video for embedding available on youtube at http://bit.ly/15NZZ5h

Credit: @SMUResearch

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Related news release: White dwarf supernovae are discovered in Virgo Cluster galaxy and in sky area 'anonymous'