Supernovae are already some of the brightest explosions in the universe—but there’s more mysterious type, called superluminous supernovae, that can shine a hundred times brighter than the usual ones. And on August 22, 2016, astronomers spotted one whose light traveled over 10 billion years to reach us.
Look up and you might see the bright constellation Cassiopeia trace a zig-zag across the sky as it seemingly always has. But almost 450 years ago, it was the source of surprise: A bright flash, Tycho’s supernova, or “SN 1572" as scientists call it. This was one of the few supernovae humans have been able to see with…
When it comes to cool space pictures, supernovae get all the credit. After all, who doesn’t love a good star death? But new images from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile reveal a stunning star birth that gives those supernova snaps a run for their money. It looks just like a firework,…
Instead of sticking his camera’s lens in the eyepiece of a powerful telescope peering into the heavens, filmmaker Thomas Vanz captured this stunning footage of a giant star going all supernova by actually pointing his camera at a glass aquarium filled with colorful inks and water.
Is it possible to find trace evidence of supernovae from millions of years ago in the sediment lining the ocean floor? One astrophysicist has spent the better part of a decade trying to find the proverbial smoking gun to prove that it is. And now, it seems, he has succeeded.
Ancient astronomers have long been providing observations of supernovae, such as SN 185 by Chinese astronomers in 185 AD, SN 1054, which produced the Crab Nebula, and SN 1006, the brightest stellar event ever recorded. Now, a new paper has uncovered a new observation of the 1006 event.
When a star dies and erupts as a supernova it can produce a short, sharp shockwave that astronomers call a “shock breakout.” For the first time ever, astronomers have captured such an event as optical light.
An international team of astrophysicists has discovered the brightest supernova yet, briefly blazing fifty times brighter than the entire Milky Way galaxy. It’s a strange new way for stars to die.
The Hubble Space Telescope took a new image of the Veil Nebula, a supernova remnant from a star that exploded 8,000 years ago, and made this truly spectacular flyover visualization of the beautiful ripple in space that you can see below. In the 3D visualization, red is sulfur, green is hydrogen and blue is oxygen.
When the supernova burned itself out, all that was left was fragments of dust and light. This fantastic image comes from Don Goldman, and it’s a beautiful one.
An exceptionally bright supernova discovered last month appears to shine brighter than 500 billion Suns. That’s twice as luminous as the previous record—but because it’s low in hydrogen, scientists are confused as to where this exploding star got all its energy.
Stars may be spherical, but that doesn’t mean they explode in a symmetrical and uniform fashion. As a new study shows, stars dramatically writhe and contort before going supernova, blasting their cores in one direction and ejected material in another.
Exploding stars are always a sight to behold, but not all supernovae are created equal: Some, for instance, may give birth to thousands of Earth-like worlds.
It's not every day we get to see a supernova, and a single exploding star split into four images is an absolute first. Here's how it happened.
This is the aftermath of an exploding star (G299, by name) and it's undoubtedly beautiful. But what it also is is very, very strange — and it just might turn all that we know about how stars explode on its head.
The supernova is a well-publicized and frightening phenomenon. There's also a phenomenon known as an "unnova." You don't want it in your backyard any more than you want a supernova.
Once again, the Universe amazes me with a never-before-seen display of color and shapes that defies belief. You are looking at Puppis A, a supernova remnant that is 7,000 light years away and is 10 light years across (!) And yet it looks like microscopic view of a coral here on Earth. Amazingly beautiful.
