Rare hypernova explosion detected on fringes of the Milky Way, 1x time ever

[FfFfFfFF 58,062]

The catastrophic blast was 10 times stronger and brighter than a typical supernova. Stars that go boom like this must be massive (dozens of times the size of the sun), spin rapidly and contain a powerful magnetic field, according to a study published in the journal Nature.

When a honkin' star like this dies, it goes out with an enormously powerful bang — collapsing into a dense, energetic husk that fuses the progenitor star's simple elements into a "soup" of ever-heavier stuff, lead study author David Yong, an astronomer based at Australian National University in Canberra, said in a statement. "It's an explosive death for the star, [and] no one's ever found this phenomenon before," Yong said.

Now, Yong and his colleagues have found a distant star on the fringes of the Milky Way that contains a bizarre chemical cocktail that can only be explained by this elusive type of explosion, the study authors wrote. The star, named SMSS J200322.54-114203.3 (but let’s call it J2 for short) is located about 7,500 light-years from the sun.

Source - https://www.livescience.com/magneto-rotational-hypernova-explosion-detected.html

[CautiousLurker 19,709]

No one's ever found this phenomenon EXCEPT for that one parallel universe where Kylie's Supernova was released as a single and unprecedentedly, deservedly became a massive hit 

Stream Supernova 

 

[PunkTheFunk 125,703]

The bigger the star the bigger the target

[Debithius 6,056]

Holy cow!

[imnotyourbabe10 6,120]

Cue my existential crisis for the day! 

In all seriousness. How cool to be alive when we are discovering things like this.