Astrophysicists figure out what caused a super-bright supernova

March 12, 2026 3:55 PM

Astrophysicists figure out what caused a super-bright supernova

A supernova - the explosion marking the end of a massive star's life - is one of the brightest cosmic events, usually about a billion times more luminous than the sun. But some - a small fraction - are even brighter than that, 10 to 100 times more luminous. These are called superluminous supernovas. Why these are so bright has been a mystery in astrophysics. But one such superluminous supernova involving a huge star in a galaxy about a billion light-years from Earth is now helping scientists so...

New type of supernova detected as black hole causes star to explode

August 15, 2025 3:09 PM

New type of supernova detected as black hole causes star to explode

Astronomers have observed the calamitous result of a star that picked the wrong dance partner. They have documented what appears to be a new type of supernova, as stellar explosions are known, that occurred when a massive star tried to swallow a black hole with which it had engaged in a lengthy pas de deux. The star, which was at least 10 times as massive as our sun, and the black hole, which had a similar mass, were gravitationally bound to one another in what is called a binary system. But as...

Astronomers get picture of aftermath of a star’s double detonation

July 3, 2025 1:02 PM

Astronomers get picture of aftermath of a star’s double detonation

The explosion of a star, called a supernova, is an immensely violent event. It usually involves a star more than eight times the mass of our sun that exhausts its nuclear fuel and undergoes a core collapse, triggering a single powerful explosion. But a rarer kind of supernova involves a different type of star - a stellar ember called a white dwarf - and a double detonation. Researchers have obtained photographic evidence of this type of supernova for the first time, using the European Southern ...