• Question: Can you see a supernovae from just our naked eye

    Asked by GINA to Ashley, Bernard, Carsten, MariaMagdalena, Monique on 17 Nov 2015.
    • Photo: Monique Henson

      Monique Henson answered on 17 Nov 2015:

      Yep! There are a few historical cases where people observed supernovae before telescopes (or what we now think of as telescopes) were invented. The supernova SN 1006 is one of these cases and was spotted all over the world.

      I think these events are quite rare though – normally you need a telescope to spot supernovae. That doesn’t mean it’s just left to scientists though. Plenty of amateur astronomers look for supernovae. For example, Robert Evans is an amateur astronomer who holds the record for the number of supernovae spotted with the naked eye.

      According to this article the youngest person to discover a supernova was 10 years old – pretty impressive I think!

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