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Black Holes and Neutron Stars are Finally Linked to Supernovae
Everybody knows that the explosive deaths of supermassive stars (called supernovae) lead to the creation of black holes or neutron stars, right? At least, that’s the evolutionary path that astronomers...
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This Galaxy Hosted One of the Most Powerful Supernovae Ever Seen
In 2010, an exceptionally luminous supernova exploded in a small galaxy about 150 million light-years away called UGC 5189A. The Hubble Space Telescope has kept its eye on this galaxy because of the...
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Giant Star Seen 150 Days Before it Exploded as a Supernova
Supernovae are relatively rare. It might not seem like it, but that’s because they’re so bright we can see them in other galaxies a great distance away. In fact, in 2022, astronomers spotted a...
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Gravitationally Lensed Supernovae are Another Way to Measure the Expansion of...
Supernova are a fascinating phenomenon and have taught us much about the evolution of stars. The upcoming Nancy Grace Roman telescope will be hunting the elusive combination of supernovae in a...
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Even if We Can’t See the First Stars, We Could Detect Their Impact on the...
For a long time, our understanding of the Universe’s first galaxies leaned heavily on theory. The light from that age only reached us after travelling for billions of years, and on the way, it was...
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Finally! Webb Finds a Neutron Star from Supernova 1987A
I can remember seeing images of SN1987A as it developed back in 1987. It was the explosion of a star, a supernova in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Over the decades that followed, it was closely...
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This is a 1.3 Gigapixel Image of a Supernova Remnant
Stars more massive than the Sun blow themselves to pieces at the end of their life. Usually leaving behind either a black hole, neutron star or pulsar they also scatter heavy elements across their...
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Finally, an Explanation for the “String of Pearls” in Supernova 1987A
Not long after the explosion of Supernova 1987a, astronomers were abuzz with predictions about how it might look in a few years. They suggested a pulsar would show up soon and many said that the...
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This Supernova Lit Up the Sky in 1181. Here’s What it Looks Like Now
Historical astronomical records from China and Japan recorded a supernova explosion in the year 1181. It was in the constellation Cassiopeia and it shone as bright as the star Vega for 185 days....
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The Brightest Gamma Ray Burst Ever Seen Came from a Collapsing Star
After a journey lasting about two billion years, photons from an extremely energetic gamma-ray burst (GRB) struck the sensors on the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory and the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space...
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