Rare cataclysmic exploding star spotted by citizen scientists
Two years ago, a team of astronomers requested help from citizen scientists around the world for the Kilonova Seekers Project. Launched in July 2023, the endeavor tasks volunteers with parsing through all-sky survey images captured daily by telescopes on opposite sides of the planet known as the Gravitational-wave Optical Transient Observer (GOTO). Within six months, Kilonova Seekers’ over 2,000 volunteers contributed more than 600,000 classifications to researchers, resulting in a total of 20 new discoveries. Now, astronomers have announced the project’s first major published find in Astronomy & Astrophysics: a brilliant exploding star observed in near real-time. Now known as GOTO0650, astronomers have determined the cosmic body is a cataclysmic variable star—one whose brightness increased by 2,500 times in just two days. Animation of the GOTO0650 outburst, made from GOTO’s all-sky survey images. Credit: GOTO, T. Killestein, University of Warwick and K. Ulaczyk A cataclysmic variable star isn’t technically a single object. Instead,...