Caroline Moore: Reaching for the Stars

(light music) - The most amazing thing for me in astronomy is the unknown.

It's like a mystery.

You're wondering what is out there.

I belong to the Puckett supernova search team and I'm one of the data searchers.

So I go through all the pictures that they send to me.

A set of data is a new and old picture of the same area of the sky.

So I'm comparing the new and the old picture to look for a change, which would be the supernova.

In this one case I was very unsure because of how dim it was and it just didn't fit the general category for what a supernova should look like in an image, but it didn't show up in any of the searches in any of the archives.

So I went ahead and decided to send it in.

It was a late school night, probably about 11:30.

I was in bed.

A friend on the team called me.

So I answered the phone.

I said, oh, what do you want?

I'm sleeping.

I have a big test tomorrow.

He said.

You've discovered the supernova that's going to destroy the earth.

Of course he was kidding, but I jumped up and down for joy.

I was extremely excited.

It was an amazing moment for me.

- Joining us now is Caroline Moore.

She's an amateur astronomer.

She is 14 years old.

- [Woman] It's also an extremely rare supernova.

- [Caroline] After finding my supernova, I had a lot of publicity.

There was a night of astronomy at the White House.

I was hosting the event with the president.

- Caroline Moore.

She became the youngest person ever to discover a supernova.

- Going to the White House was probably one of the most amazing experiences I will ever have.

The president's right there.

The first lady's right there.

You feel so honored and you feel important.

It feels like it's not even happening.

There's an emotional part of looking at the sky because there's just so much that we've yet to discover.

I hope that I'm serving as a good role model educating younger kids on astronomy and science and how enjoyable it can really be.