All supernovae are exploding stars. But the nature of a supernova explosion varies quite a bit. One type, named Type 1a supernovae, involves a binary star where one of the pair is a white dwarf. And ...

What can imaging supernovae (plural for supernova) explosions teach astronomers about their behavior and physical characteristics? This is what a recent study published in Nature Astronomy hopes to ...

What is your supernova hypothesis? My hypothesis is that remnants of a supernova—an exploding star —had an impact on Earth's past climate, causing global cooling, between 3 million and 2.6 million ...

One of the great mysteries of the Universe is where all the metal actually comes from. We know it's forged in cosmic fire – but which fires in particular, and in which proportions, is a little bit ...

Stars often die with a final burst of beauty. For the first time, astronomers have captured visual proof that a star can explode not once, but twice before fading forever. Using the European Southern ...

Scientists have revealed for the first time a jaw-dropping early view of an exploding supernova. Observations with the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) have revealed ...

Alex Filippenko is the kind of guy who brings a telescope to a party. True to form, at a soiree on May 18 this year, he wowed his hosts with images of star clusters and colorful galaxies — including ...

You’d think that supernovae – the death throes of massive stars and among the brightest, most powerful explosions in the universe – would be hard to miss. Yet the number of these blasts observed in ...

It’s easy to forget that stars, just like us, have lifetimes. They’re born, they live, and eventually, they die. And for some stars, their death is dramatic, producing an explosion so powerful it can ...

Humankind has long turned to the skies in search of answers. Accounts of supernovae – exploding stars – go back thousands of years, but while we know today that these events create the building blocks ...