We're more used to seeing news stories about teenage girls running up astronomical cell phone bills than having an interest in astronomy, but 14 year old Caroline Moore is clearly exceptional. Caroline, who is from New York, was scouting the night sky with her amateur telescope when she spotted celestial object SN 2008ha (catchy name, huh?)

The supernova is an exploded star located 70 million light-years away from Earth (approx) and no-one had ever identified it before. It appears to be unusually bright.

As Alex Filippenko, the leader of the supernova group at the University of California in Berkeley told Softpedia.com:

“Coincidentally, the youngest person to ever discover a supernova found one of the most peculiar and interesting supernovae ever."

Kudos, Caroline - keep up the great work!

Image: NASA.