Reference Terms
from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Supernova
A supernova (plural supernovae) is a stellar explosion which produces an extremely bright object made of plasma that declines to invisibility over weeks or months. A supernova briefly outshines its entire host galaxy. It would take 10 billion years for the Sun to produce the energy output of an ordinary Type II supernova. Stars beneath the Chandrasekhar limit, such as the Sun, are too light to ever become supernovae and will evolve into white dwarfs.
There are several different types of supernovae and two possible routes to their formation. A massive star may cease to generate fusion energy from fusing the nuclei of atoms in its core, and collapse under the force of its own gravity to form a neutron star or black hole. Alternatively, a white dwarf star may accumulate material from a companion star until it nears its Chandrasekhar limit and undergoes runaway nuclear fusion in its interior, completely disrupting it. This second type of supernova is distinct from a surface thermonuclear explosion on a white dwarf, which is called a nova. In either type of supernova, the resulting explosion expels much or all of the stellar material with great force.
Related Stories
1
2
Space & Time News
July 8, 2026
July 8, 2026 Researchers have created an AI-based simulation that makes it much faster to model how neutron star mergers produce many of the universe's heaviest elements. The new tool could improve predictions of these powerful explosions while helping ...
July 7, 2026 Scientists have taken an important step toward building quantum detectors that could reveal some of the universe’s biggest secrets. Using a prototype device with two clouds of ultracold atoms, ...
July 6, 2026 Scientists are calling for a lunar quarantine facility where samples from Mars, the Moon, and beyond would be examined before being brought to Earth. They warn that even a tiny alien microorganism ...
July 3, 2026 Researchers have created quantum control techniques that can make a system appear to run backward in time. By precisely managing quantum measurements, they can reshape the system's arrow of time and even harvest energy from the measurement process ...
June 30, 2026 A strange gamma-ray glow at the center of the Milky Way has long sparked debate over whether it comes from hidden neutron stars or elusive dark matter. By applying machine learning to more than a million simulated observations, researchers included ...
June 29, 2026 Scientists are raising concerns that we may be overlooking evidence of extraterrestrial life even when it is present. Hidden biosignatures, limitations in detection technology, and assumptions about what life should look like can all create ...
June 29, 2026 A new AI-powered framework could transform how astronomers measure the expansion of the Universe. By analyzing images of Type Ia supernovae and modeling their environments in unprecedented detail, researchers can estimate cosmic distances with ...
June 23, 2026 SETI scientists searched the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS for radio signals that could indicate extraterrestrial technology but found nothing beyond human-made interference. Even so, the rapid-response observations helped confirm the object's ...
June 23, 2026 NASA’s upgraded Cold Atom Lab is turning the International Space Station into a frontier for quantum research, creating ultra-cold matter that behaves in astonishing ways. The experiments could ...
June 18, 2026 The race to build data centers in space is gaining momentum as AI drives unprecedented demand for computing power. Orbital facilities could tap into abundant solar energy and avoid many of the environmental challenges faced on Earth. Yet space ...
June 16, 2026 A new SETI study suggests we may be overlooking alien signals not because they aren't there, but because their own stars are scrambling them before they escape into space. Turbulent plasma and powerful stellar storms can spread an ultra-narrow radio ...
June 11, 2026 Scientists found that transfer learning can make the search for new physics in the universe much faster, slashing the need for expensive simulations. Yet the approach can backfire when AI relies too heavily on familiar patterns, potentially missing ...
Latest Headlines
updated 12:56 pm ET
July 7, 2026 What if one of the biggest assumptions in cosmology is wrong? New research suggests the universe may not be perfectly uniform in every direction, as scientists have long believed. A puzzling mismatch ...
July 6, 2026 A strange "chirping" signal from a distant supernova has revealed the birth of a magnetar, confirming that these incredibly magnetic neutron stars can power the universe's brightest stellar ...
July 5, 2026 NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has captured a spectacular red, white, and blue view of one of the Milky Way's oldest star clusters to celebrate the nation's 250th anniversary. Hidden within the ...
July 5, 2026 Hubble has captured a spectacular view of LH 95, where about 2,500 young stars are still on their journey to becoming full-fledged stars. Scientists ...
July 4, 2026 Celebrating the United States' 250th anniversary, NASA released a stunning Hubble portrait of Messier 3, an ancient globular cluster with more than 500,000 stars. The remarkable cluster is helping ...
July 4, 2026 Researchers have proposed that black holes stop evaporating at the last moment, leaving behind tiny remnants that preserve all the information they contain. The same seven-dimensional geometry behind ...
July 4, 2026 NASA is marking the United States' 250th birthday with four striking red, white, and blue images of deep space from the Chandra X-ray Observatory. The collection features an exploded star, a stellar ...
July 2, 2026 An unusual gravitational wave signal has renewed hopes that primordial black holes, long considered purely theoretical, may finally be within reach of discovery. If confirmed, they could solve one of ...
July 2, 2026 Ancient asteroid impacts may have done more than reshape Earth's surface—they could have helped spark life itself. New computer models show the collisions created enormous underground hydrothermal ...
July 1, 2026 Astronomers have released the largest gravitational wave catalog ever, revealing 161 new black hole collisions and pushing the total number of detections to 390. Among the highlights are the clearest ...