, but the earlier observation had priority for discovery credit. His search was made possible by his participation in the Badlands Observatory Supernova Survey, a program that may eventually be expanded to include many students from high schools and colleges around South Dakota. The NASA South Dakota Space Grant Consortium, headquartered at the School of Mines, is also providing resources to help develop this program. This survey concept is an outgrowth of a project initiated by Sharlissa Moore, a graduate of Rapid City Stevens High School and Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. She worked at Badlands Observatory under an internship program during the summer of 2004.
"It was very unusual for Peter to find this supernova after only a few weeks of observation. He has been observing 25 selected distant galaxies for about a month. It usually would require observation of 100 galaxies for a full year, in order to find one supernova," Ron Dyvig, owner and director of Badlands Observatory, said. "He really beat the odds on this, and it speaks very well for the search methods we are developing at Badlands Observatory." Dyvig also added that Schemmel is actually controlling the Badlands 26-inch telescope and camera system remotely via the Internet from his home in Brandon.
Although very faint on Schemmel's images, the supernova event, now officially named SN 2008a, represents an incredible event indeed. The galaxy NGC 634, similar in size to our own Milky Way galaxy, is located at a distance of about 220 million light years. That means this actual supernova explosion occurred some 220 million years ago, but its light didn't reach Earth until January 2, 2008. Peter was the second human being to see it!
A larger observatory has already done spectroscopic analysis of SN 2008a and determined that it is a Type IA supernova, meaning that the explosion has probably resulted from a catastrophic stellar collapse within a binary star system. A supernova event such as this is a rather rare event within a given galaxy, probably only one event per 100 years. However, many of them are discovered each year, because of the vast number galaxies out there to observe. It is also interesting to note that supernovae such as SN 2008a release a large quantity of neutrinos, which may be studied by underground detectors, such as those proposed for the Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory (DUSEL) to be located in the former Homestake Mine in Lead, South Dakota
Schemmel graduated from Brandon Valley High School this semester, and has been taking college level courses for more than a year. He will be attending college at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. beginning this upcoming semester and will continue his remote observing from there. He is planning on studying physics.