Welcome to the SNLS

SNLS stands for SuperNova Legacy Survey. It is a component of the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey lead by Canadian and French astronomers. SNLS also involves spectroscopic and photometric support observations at Gemini, Keck and VLT through additional observing time contributed by the United Kingdom, United States of America and Portugal. It was discovered in 1998 that not only is the universe expanding, but it is expanding at an accelerating rate. The Canadian and French astronomers of the SNLS are attempting to find out more about dark energy, which is thought to drive this acceleration. In fact, the scientists hope to measure the equation of state of dark energy, which would have a great impact on our understanding of the universe and cosmology. In addition to learning more about dark energy, the survey will obtain enough data to uncover variable stars, faint ecliptic objects, moving galactic stars and cosmological variables such as QSOs. This benefits the astronomical community as a whole because all these objects will have been discovered at no extra cost. The pictures to the right are two exposures from the SNLS. The exposure on the top was taken before the supernova event, and the exposure on the bottom shows the supernova. This is how a supernova is detected: you look for a star that isn't there in one picture, but is in the next. More information about detecting supernovae can be found in the How It's Done section.

How You Find a Supernova: Compare images of the same object from different times. Look for something new!

Terms marked in italics are glossary terms. Clicking on them will take you to the glossary page.