Project News

The aftermath of a supernova seen for the first time

ZTF • News Release • January 10th, 2024

A team of astronomers from the ZTF partnership used ZTF and a suite of other telescopes available to the ZTF partners to discover and analyze supernova SN2022jli. While nothing is uncommon about the name of this supernova, it goes down in history as the first one that revealed to us in...

The weirdest of them all - a stellar corpse shows signs of life

ZTF • News Release • November 15th, 2023

The Zwicky Transient Facility captured repeated energetic flares from a stellar corpse, a phenomena astronomer are observing for the very first time. The research advances longstanding goals to map how stars’ properties in life may predict the way they will die, ...

Astronomers Discover Extremely Warped Supernova

ZTF • News Release • June 12th, 2023

Astronomers have captured a bizarre image of a supernova, the powerful explosion of a star, whose light was so warped by the gravity of another galaxy that it appears as multiple images in the sky. This effect, known as gravitational lensing, occurs when the gravity of a dense object...

Radio signals reveal the origin of a supernova

ZTF • News Release • May 17th, 2023

Astronomers from the Zwicky Transient Facility collaboration based at the University of Stockholm, Sweden have uncovered the origin of a thermonuclear supernova explosion. Strong emission lines of helium and the first detection of such a supernova in radio waves show that the...

ZTF sees a star eating its world

ZTF • News Release • May 3rd, 2023

For the first time, astronomers have caught a star in the act of swallowing a planet whole. The sun-like star, called ZTF SLRN-2020, lies about 15,000 light-years away in our galaxy and is thought to have engulfed a hot gas giant about the size of Jupiter or smaller.

ZTF makes first discovery of a rare cosmic 'lunch'

ZTF • News Release • November 30th, 2022

Tidal disruption events are violent cosmic displays of a black hole devouring a nearby star. Astronomers uncovered a very rare flavor of such an event in the survey data from the Zwicky Transient Facility.

1000 supernovae classified autonomously with machine learning

ZTF • News Release • November 22nd, 2022

Astronomers from the ZTF collaboration at Caltech have developed a machine learning algorithm that autonomously classifies supernovae and reports them to the global astronomical community for follow up observations. Sieving through millions of supernovae candidates, the algorithm,...

ZTF Public Data Release 12

ZTF • News Release • July 7th, 2022

The Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) and IPAC at the California Institute of Technology announce the twelfth ZTF Public Data Release. ZTF is an optical time-domain survey covering the northern sky visible from Palomar Observatory since 17 March 2018.

Native American tribe names a ZTF-discovered asteroid

ZTF • News Release • June 9th, 2022

Members of the Pauma band native American tribe, whose ancestral lands include the Palomar mountain, gathered at the Palomar Observatory to name a unique asteroid discovered back in 2020 by ZTF. "Ayló'chaxnim" or "Venus Girl" is the first asteroid to be found that ...

ZTF captures a possible candidate of a high-energy neutrino for a second time

ZTF • News Release • June 3rd, 2022

Led by researchers at DESY, Germany, astronomers have discovered and analyzed an extremely bright tidal disruption event that may be associated with a high-energy neutrino. The discovery was done with the ZTF survey and the study is published today in the Physical Review Letters.

The aftermath of a supernova seen for the first time

ZTF • January 10th, 2024

A team of astronomers from the ZTF partnership used ZTF and a suite of other telescopes available to the ZTF partners to discover and analyze supernova SN2022jli. While...

The weirdest of them all - a stellar corpse shows signs of life

ZTF • November 15th, 2023

The Zwicky Transient Facility captured repeated energetic flares from a stellar corpse, a phenomena astronomer are observing for the very first time. The...

Astronomers Discover Extremely Warped Supernova

ZTF • June 12th, 2023

Astronomers have captured a bizarre image of a supernova, the powerful explosion of a star, whose light was so warped by the gravity of another galaxy that it appears as...

Radio signals reveal the origin of a supernova

ZTF • May 17th, 2023

Astronomers from the Zwicky Transient Facility collaboration based at the University of Stockholm, Sweden have uncovered the origin of a thermonuclear supernova explosion....

ZTF sees a star eating its world

ZTF • May 3rd, 2023

For the first time, astronomers have caught a star in the act of swallowing a planet whole. The sun-like star, called ZTF SLRN-2020, lies about 15,000 light-years away in...

ZTF makes first discovery of a rare cosmic 'lunch'

ZTF • November 30th, 2022

Tidal disruption events are violent cosmic displays of a black hole devouring a nearby star. Astronomers uncovered a very rare flavor of such an event in the survey data...

1000 supernovae classified autonomously with machine learning

ZTF • November 22nd, 2022

Astronomers from the ZTF collaboration at Caltech have developed a machine learning algorithm that autonomously classifies supernovae and reports them to the global...

ZTF Public Data Release 12

ZTF • July 7th, 2022

The Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) and IPAC at the California Institute of Technology announce the twelfth ZTF Public Data Release. ZTF is an optical time-domain survey...

Native American tribe names a ZTF-discovered asteroid

ZTF • June 9th, 2022

Members of the Pauma band native American tribe, whose ancestral lands include the Palomar mountain, gathered at the Palomar Observatory to name a unique...

ZTF captures a possible candidate of a high-energy neutrino for a second time

ZTF • June 3rd, 2022

Led by researchers at DESY, Germany, astronomers have discovered and analyzed an extremely bright tidal disruption event that may be associated with a high-energy...