Astronomical achievement for ten-year-old girl as she becomes the youngest person to spot a supernova

A ten-year-old girl has become the youngest person to discover a supernova.

With a middle name of Aurora, Kathryn Gray was always likely to make a big name for herself in the astronomy world.

And on New Year's Eve, the Canadian spotted a magnitude 17 supernova - the violent death of a star, often several times bigger than our own sun. They are extremely bright, and can briefly outshine a whole galaxy.

What a find: Ten-year-old Kathryn Gray with the computer on which she discovered a supernova

WHAT IS A SUPERNOVA?

A supernova is a stellar explosion that causes a burst of radiation which can briefly outshine an entire galaxy, before fading from view over several weeks or months.

During its explosion a supernova can radiate as much energy as the Sun is expected to emit over its entire life span.

The explosion expels a star's material at a velocity of up to 30,000 km/s (10% of the speed of light), driving a shockwave into the surrounding interstellar medium.

Shockwaves can trigger the formation of new stars.

The first recorded supernova was in 1054.

The most recent was recorded in 1885, and occurred in the Andromeda Galaxy.

Since the invention of the telescope, more supernovae are seen every year, although the exact number appears to be unknown.

Looking for supernovas requires combing through dozens of old images of star fields and comparing them to new pictures. The supernovas show up as bright spots on the star fields.

Miss Gray, of Fredericton, New Brunswick, was studying images taken at an amateur observatory which had been sent to her father, himself an amateur astronomer Paul Gray.

She spotted the supernova, called Supernova 2010lt, after going through the fourth of 52 images on a computer screen.

The images were captured by a telescope belonging to Dave Lane, a fellow astronomer in Nova Scotia, who had emailed the images to MrGray.

'Kathryn pointed to the screen and said: "Is this one?" I said "Yup, that looks pretty good",' said Mr Gray.

The supernova is in the distant galaxy UGC 3378, about 240 million light years away, in the constellation of Camelopardalis.

The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (RASC) says Kathryn is the youngest person to make such a discovery. The finding was quickly confirmed by the International Astronomical Union.

'It’s fantastic that someone so young would be passionate about astronomy. What an incredible discovery. We’re all very excited,' said Deborah Thompson, executive director of the RASC.

The last supernova in our galaxy occurred several hundred years ago.

Kathryn says she plans to keep looking for supernovas - but just as a hobby.