In the past 10 decade the science of transients and astronomical objects that change with time has undergone a revolution with tens of thousands of supernovae (SNe) being discovered each year. However, we still have a lot to learn about these objects. For example, SNe close to their time after their explosion (hours to days) and transients that are red in color are just beginning to be explored.
Thee Young Supernova Experiment (YSE) is a collaboration i work in that is a 3-year, optical time-domain survey on the Pan-STARRS telescopes that obtains thousands of light curves for transient a very young stage of evolution. The excitement and novelty of YSE lies in the fact that discovery of these transients could occur potentially even only hours after their explosion. When possible, observations will also be incorporated with observations from the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) to further improve the our ability to identify young transients.
YSE is international collaboration between principal investigators (PIs) Margutti (Northwestern), Drout (U Toronto) and DARK (U Copenhagen; PIs Hjorth and Ramirez-Ruiz), UC Santa Cruz (PIs Foley and Ramirez-Ruiz), U Illinois (PIs French and Narayan) who work together to serve the purpose of discovering these young transients. However, each individual group may also have specific targets they interested in studying.
PanSTARRS1 Observatory on Haleakala, Maui just before sunrise. (Image Credit: Rob Ratkowski)